The Ballad Of The Songbird

Here is a little snippet from a project I started but have since put on the back burner. Enjoy!

The Ballad Of The Songbird

The songbird was a ghost in the flames of the campfire. Upon a branch the bird sat, silver wings shimmered with the flicker of fire, cooing in tune with the soft melody of song and flute. Little Amelia listened to her mother sing the story of the songbird and watched as the tale unfolded in the blaze.

“The tale of the songbird is both beautiful and tragic,” her mother sang. “It is a tale of love and a tale of magic.”

The flute chimed like the chirp of mid-day birds carried on a clean Spring wind. It was the first time Amelia’s mother and father had performed their gifts together. Her mother, whose voice was the epitome of perfection, a grand scale of pitch and vibrato, matched her father’s enchanting mastery of the flute in a harmony that could rise the sun and set the stars alight.

Within the fire, which sat beneath a blanket of night, on the edge of the woods next to a small cottage where Amelia and her family lived, the image of the silver bird took from the branch and soared through the inferno. The delicate creature’s wings flapped on beat with the whistling of Amelia’s father’s flute.

“By day and by night the songbird flew, toward the Destination it traveled to.”

Clouds appeared within the fire, the songbird dove and weaved around them. “Upon its journey it met its mate.” A second bird appeared, a bit larger and more gray than the other, and began to circle around the songbird. “The two birds entwined in each other’s fate.”

The mother’s voice rang out in the half light of the campfire, sweet and smooth. The father’s flute hit a crescendo, the fire cracked, erupted a plume of embers and smoke filled with the scent of burnt forest wood. Two birds flew out of the commotion, solid as the dirt beneath Amelia’s feet, and landed one on each of her shoulders.

Amelia let out a shrill giggle as the birds chirped along with the music next to her ears, then flew a circuit around her and her parents, before colliding back into the fire to become phantoms again.

The mother smiled to her daughter who watched the vision dance in the heat. The woman’s dark eyes held a sorrow that was masked in the darkness. “But though the power of love is strong, the songbird must sing her deadly song.”

The two birds stopped then in a tree overlooking a mighty temple. The silver bird began to coo a melody Amelia recognized, as her mother sang the same song in a language Amelia couldn’t understand. She had heard her mother sing it before, or hum or whistle it, but she had never asked what it was.

At the end of the song the gray bird disappeared in a wisp of smoke that rose into the night, leaving the songbird alone on the branch in the fire.

“It is destiny that one must die, and that is why the songbird cries,” the mother finished.

The image of the bird ceased with the ending of her father’s flute. The fire flickered with warmth.

“But why did the birdie die?” Amelia asked, looking to her parents with the intense concern of a six-year-old.

“Such things are destiny, my dear,” her mother said.

“It is just a story,” her father reassured before he glanced to the mother. “The moral is some things require sacrifice. Life is full of trades, one thing for another.”

Amelia considered this for a moment, which was long enough for one so young in which a moment was still a significant fraction of life. “That song you sang, what was it?”

Her mother smiled and said, “It is The Ballad Of The Songbird.”

“It was very pretty,” Amelia said.

“Would you like me to teach it to you one day?”

Amelia nodded with excitement.

“Then it is settled.”

“Not tonight, though,” her father said. “It is past the hour for little ones to be in bed.”

“But Papa,” Amelia whined.

“If you don’t get to sleep now, you will be tired all of tomorrow. Remember what I said about trades? On with you!” Amelia’s father stood and ushered the small child away from the fire and into the cottage.

Her mother slowly rose from her seat, faced the fire and sang three notes. With a soft pop the fire extinguished.