The Sparrow

[In continuation with the post "The Fox" in May, 2010]

The moon was beautiful in the night sky.. and it might always have been so, but the sparrow could never see it. 

Born with defects, the sparrow lived the early days of her childhood in the cozy nest wondering if she could ever spread her wings out to fly. The deformed left wing she had, which looked almost like fractured, was a birth defect, she was told, and it was enough to put her out of the league forever. To add to that, many of her feathers had been missing at the time of her birth, because the birth had not been natural. The egg had to be cracked open by the parents. They suspected till their death that the force they had applied to bring her out of that shell might have caused a permanent injury to the brain. But death takes all the suspicions along, and leaves life at a blank.

Rest apart, there was a problem that could possibly have no solution. The sparrow had another disability that her parents never could notice their whole life. The sparrow was born blind.

The little sparrow had been contentedly lying in her nest, singing to herself on a cloudy day, too young to fetch food herself. The parents had left early in the morning, leaving her alone in her dark, black world. It was then, that a contained slithering sound to her left made her jump, for she knew her parents could not have been back yet, and they made a different sound: she thought.

“Now here’s my meal!” came the high pitched voice, which startled the sparrow even more.

“Who are you?”

“Well, they call me a snake…”

“A snake..?”, said the sparrow, a note of interest in her voice.

“Yes. And I eat sparrows”, hissed the snake with greed in his voice.

“You… eat…”, the sparrow stammered, shaking her head madly, as if that would scare it away. The snake moved closer and looked at the poor sparrow, and realized in an instant that not only was she ugly and physically a wreck, she was blind too.

“You are blind!”, the snake hissed in surprise.

“I’m what?”

“Blind… you can’t see can you?”

“See? I don’t know what you are talking about…”

There was a long and distressing pause before the snake spoke again.

“Oh… I’ll have to look for some other animal now… I can’t kill you… I won’t!”

And the snake slithered away. The sparrow was surprised by this lucky escape, but she was still confused about what the snake had said. She thought she would ask her parents when they got back what “blind” meant.

But they never returned.

Terribly hungry and the thirst nearly killing her, she lay in her nest wondering what happened to her parents. It rained heavily in the night, and she was relieved of thirst, but hunger was still haunting her. She could feel heavy droplets painfully smashing on her head. She was witnessing the worst torment she’d ever felt. She screamed in agony as heavier droplets attacked her fragile and weak body, but no one heard her amongst the thunder. And just as she thought that nothing could have been worse, she felt her nest falling apart. The fall from the topmost branch had never seemed to end as more and more leaves and branches whipped against her, till she finally landed heavily upon the muddy ground.

She lay there motionless, and any living being would have pitied the state she was in. She had no idea how much time had passed when she woke up. But after that, it had been a completely new life for her.

She would still feel proud of herself whenever she recalled all the things she had to endure to keep her alive in a world she could not see. She would often cry, recalling the struggle she had made to comprehend the world and its workings, to understand the meaning of “blind”, to learn to fly with a broken wing, and most importantly, to find food for herself without the use of sight.

She would remember how at times she had nearly given up all hope. Though she had learnt to find food with the other senses she had, and though she managed to fly nearly well even with a broken wing, and that too, much better than other sparrows who called themselves “normal”, she was haunted by a constant feeling of emptiness within her. She would often think how life would have been if she hadn’t been blind or deformed.

But that was till she once flew to a new place. It was a small house with a family of foxes living in it, she could easily tell by their sounds. She started to spend her time on the branches of an oak tree in front of their house and would listen to them intently. As the days passed by, she identified one of them to be half-blind and with a disabled limb. Though at first she had felt pity for poor creatures like herself and the fox, she soon realized how different they both were.

She learned that when compared to the fox, she was still way ahead and better in all respects. The poor fox seemed to hate his life more than he ought to. But she did feel pity for the fox when his parents died and his brothers left him… and for a moment a memory from her past tormented her again. But now she was strong; stronger than she ever had been. She had now realized how beautiful and blessed her life was.

And when she knew for sure that the nature of the poor fox will cause him to perish uselessly, she had decided to help him out. She had resolved that by any means, she would teach the poor fox before he died, a lesson she had learnt long ago. She knew that it would not be an easy job, but then, she rarely found anything quite easy… she was very much used to it.

And so, the sparrow started to spend her time and energy to feed the fox. And it was weeks before she finally faced the fox.

“The one who deserves to see the moon is the one who has done his labour for the day, and has earned his own food, the one who has worked hard and tried his best to make his living, irrespective of his success.” The fox had been very fascinated by these words she had spoken. And the tone in the fox’s voice told the sparrow that she had managed to do what she had decided.

So, while the fox had gone about to hunt, the sparrow sat simply, pondering over her actions. There had been countless times when she had felt surprised at her own strengths. The desire to live is itself an impetus beyond par, and she knew it very well by now. And though she had given the fox the strength he needed, she wondered if the moon she never had seen was really of as much splendid beauty that she had described. She wondered if the fox could ever glimpse it.

Surprisingly, the fox had managed to catch a prey by completely ignoring the stabbing pain in his entire body. And happily, she had told the fox to wait till the moon showed up in the dark skies above.

And now as the sparrow sat high atop the dark and august trees, singing praises for Lord, she could feel the full moon that she could not see. And equally well, several feet below her, she could feel a life departing the forest grounds.

A tear slipped off her lifeless eyes as she flapped her broken wings and took off into the night.

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