Conversations under the sky- Between a wild bird and a boy.
CHAPTER 1
“I was born inside the boy”, the wild bird said to the sky.
“If he only knew it, he would have let me go or made a nest for me to fall asleep in, but he doesn’t know I’m here.” the wild bird adds.
“Why don’t you tell him that you are trapped inside of him,” the sky said.
“You are the sky, so how on earth will that be possible!” I’m only a wild bird and he is a boy. I can’t speak human and he can’t speak bird.”
The sky noticed – the wild bird was so strong that the boy became the bird and the boy was so strong that the bird became the boy.
CHAPTER 2
“I’m confused,” the wild boy said. “One day I’m a boy and the other day I become a wild bird.”
”My sister is confused, my parents even more and my teacher don’t like wild birds. School stuffs me in a classroom cage when I want to flap my wings and that makes me feel even wilder and trapped.”
“I wish I can tell the boy’s family and teacher I am trapped inside the boy,” the wild bird said.
“Why don’t you?” asked the sky.
“I don’t know how to”, said the bird
“Maybe the boy must train you how to speak human,” the sky said.
That night when the boy was still climbing trees like a wild boy after his parents called him many times to come inside, the sky started to rain. He hated the loud thunder and the “eerie” feeling of the wet clothes rubbing on his skin. He just hates how his mind starts to spin. He hates to feel like nobody gets him and felt so alone, so he spoke out of frustration to the wild bird.
“I hate you the boy said. I hate it when I know you here and I can’t get rid of you. I hate to feel how you creep up under my skin, starting to slowly flap your wings. It tickles me from the inside. I hate it because I know I cannot stop you from becoming wild and shrieking inside of me! I just hate how other people judge me for having you inside of me. I’m always getting the blame but it’s you that needs to be punished for being wild and acting out, not me!"
CHAPTER 3
For the first time, the wild bird saw how the boy cried with the rain. The wild bird was so extremely delighted that the boy spoke to him that he only managed to utter a single sentence. Although it was just a single sentence it was enough for the boy to notice that the wild bird was acknowledging that he was part of him.
“Then, train me then to be YOUR bird”, the wild bird said.
“I will train you!” the boy cried out.
“From now on you are MY wild bird and from now on I will make you, MY warrior. I’ll teach you to fly over oceans. I will make you even stronger than you are now! “
In a moment of doubt, the bird spoke out to load to the sky and the boy overheard him.
” I’m a wild bird, he first needs to concur with me before he can train me”, he said.
This made the boy think. He even thought about it that night when his mother read to him his favorite book “ The warriors of an Impossible Story”, at his bedside. And for the first time, he told his mother of the wild bird he has discovered inside of him, and his plan to conquer him.
That night the parents decided to help the boy rather than ignore the bird.
CHAPTER 4
First of all, I need to learn his ways. The boy decided.
“I need to outwit the bird.’’ the sky heard him saying it repeatedly. Whispering it like a personal mantra. Chanting the moment. It irritated the bird and made him hide.
“I’m a wild bird,” the bird said to the sky. “It’s going to take more than words to tame me. The boy needs to act on it and prove to me his worth to be my master.
The sky seems distant but when he heard the boy’s needs and the bird’s power struggle he was concerned.
“How on earth are they going to figure this out,” the sky said.
And no one answered.
At that moment, the sky decided to become the guide. He opened the path with light and insight and close off the ways of no entry, with darkness.
So, for the next few days, the boy waited for the wild bird to come, but the bird kept himself aside. Hiding. He later changed the words to “I need to outwit you, you stubborn featherless bird!” Instead of getting angry, the wild bird found it funny, and the bird couldn’t help himself laughing at the boy.
And deep inside the boy, he felt a feeling of relief.
CHAPTER 5
The boy created a strategy just like the warriors of an impossible story. He did everything the same as every day. A strategy to see if something different will appear. The difference would have been the bird. So, he waited behind his mask of observation. That was clever of the boy. The warriors learned it from the sky.
Their motto was; If you notice the sun shines every day the same way, only then will you be alert by the dark cloud building up.
The wild bird was quiet, and the boy kept the sun inside, shining from himself. From behind his mask, he started to notice WHAT lures the bird out towards his nature to becoming wild again.
He notices that other people started to miss the bird and were looking for it in him. Some of his classmates were even annoyed with him, and he realized they were the entire time friends with the bird not him. Others teased the birds and tried to invoke him, in an attempt to get the boy in trouble, but the boy ignored even the slight feeling of the bird trying to flap his wings. It took a lot of effort, but the boy reminded himself that he was a warrior, and a true warrior embraces hardship. Later, some of the boy’s peers left him alone and he learned to see deeper with the eyes of a warrior. He noticed that there were other children in his grade also dealing with birds of different feathers. One girl had a silent bird, so sweet and subtle that it made her distant and drown her in the flock of absence. He wished he could tell her, but it wasn’t his place too and he didn’t speak girl.
The boy started to enjoy some relief, mostly for being NOT in trouble. But the bird was only prepared to be mastered by a master who deserved him and have earned his respect of self-control...
CHAPTER 6
One skyless night the boy’s parents became engaged in normal stuff and his sister started to tease him about some random hair growing on his chin. When he mentioned it to his parents and they didn’t respond, he suddenly felt overlooked. He even realized with a slight nostalgia, that he misses the attention he always gets when everyone notices him for being out of place. So, he turned to his PlayStation games and ate his whole stash of sugary sweets at once. He stayed awake engaging in things that overstimulates him, till the early morning hours in an attempt to dim those unsettling feelings. Although the wild bird was sneaky and tried to hide away from the sunny boy, that morning he couldn’t help himself.
When the boy woke up the wild bird was even more vicious than in the past.
The boy was too exhorted from lack of sleep, that he failed to control the wild bird. The bird made him feel so crummy that he rather became the bird than be the boy that day.
The wild bird so was so rough that he harmed the boy from the inside. The sky felt like crying at seeing this, but he couldn’t make rain that day, to stop it. Every wing flap of unknown feelings confused the boy and hurt him even more, and the pain was evoked by everyone else trying extremely hard to control him from the outside.
He heard them saying hurtful things like,
“ I told you it was only a front he has put up the last days.“ "This child is a disaster!”
“I wonder what happens at home if he acts so undisciplined?”
Even his friend said stuff like:
“We don’t want to play with you, you are a bully.” Adding some harsh words when they walk past him.
It felt like the judgment was bags full of stones thrown at him! He felt in the middle of the battlefield. They didn’t even see the boy that day, they only saw the wild bird acting out.
His teacher has punished him for not being able to complete the tasks set for the boy. His friend was scared of the bird, attacking the boy, leading him into a fight on the playground at lunch break. That afternoon he felt useless and exhausted when he got back from school. His parent was disappointed, but by grace, the sky has pulled a cloud over them not to worsen the case and made them realize maybe the boy needs their help to train the bird.
In fact, he is only a boy.
CHAPTER 7
“I just need some time alone” the boy pleads to his parents. “Please just let me be .” he cried.
The boy went to his room and made a little book from one of his old schoolbooks. He said to himself:
“Don’t forget, I am a warrior of the islands of Brokenland, a place only I know off. I’m the master of my impossible story. I won’t let the wild bird defeat me!” he said to himself and wrote his first strategies down.
1. “Get enough sleep,” he wrote. For the wild bird sees tiredness as a weak point and then attacks.
2. ” Eat healthy”, Avoid food that makes me too energetic and spikes my fighting levels, the wild bird feeds on it.
3. ” Don’t ignore the wild bird, for then he becomes angry and breaks loose and harms me. Rather give him some time and attention when I feel like it and when I feel I can manage him. In this way, he will learn who is the master and who is the trainee.
4. Other people would not be able to train my bird. They confuse me with the bird and don’t see me for who I am. I am the master of my own bird, my impossible story. The warrior of my islands of Brokenland.
The mother and father spoke to the boy’s sister and explain to her that the boy has a wild bird in him that he needs to train, and he needs their support.
Don’t give the wild bird the attention he is seeking but when you do see the boy, make him feel bold and important. Don’t feed the wild bird and try to lure him out with negative comments and poking him to get a reaction. Don’t give the bird attention then he seeks but rather reward the boy for acting with control.
And as time went by the boy discovered more strategies and wrote them in his book.
5. The wild bird is not my enemy, he is my willpower, my drive my adventure. BUT when I don’t control him he becomes my shame, my punishment, and my weakness.
6. I need to plan, warriors are prepared. The wild bird gets tamed by routine. He loves to act when I’m not prepared.
CHAPTER 8
The parents spoke to the teacher and the sky convinced her to listen and learn more. They gave her a different set of spectacles and ask her to put them on then she looks at the boy and many others dealing with wild birds of different kinds of feathers, inside them.
The specs were bright and colorful and made of understanding. Like 3-D glasses enabling her to see the battle, they have inside of them. Most of them were not even aware of their bird and she had to explain to them. The teacher made her classroom and routine a predictable and happy place. She learned about the many types of birds and that sometimes some kids have more than one to deal with. A big bird with small little chicks and even birds that can change color. She noticed that some kids have uncontrollable, black wild crows. Others, impulsive peacocks, fanning their tail feathers, spacing them out from other ordinary farm chickens. Pecking at anything that the eye sees, by gleefully seeking out and devouring all manner of destruction from insects and crumbs. She also started to notice the girl in her class, flying off with her flock of birds to a faraway place of imagination, all this while she was teaching.
CHAPTER 9
Time passed and the boy and the bird started to understand one another in a special manner. The boy grew up and discovered later in his life, that if you can train your wild bird it gives you an advance, a special way. He also learned if you focus on its uniqueness it becomes a powerful skill.
One day the teacher invited him to come and tell the other warriors in training, still in school, how he become one of the warriors of an impossible story. He told them about his conversations with the sky and the wild bird on his islands of Brokenland. How he recreated it into islands of many possibilities.
He wrote down some strategies he learned when he got older.
7. Never bounce away from who you are, bounce back. Your disadvantage can be your greatest advantage.
8. Silence doesn’t heal. From sharing your story, others can learn from it.
9. Be careful to label your bird, by doing that you position the bird and not yourself and inhibit you and your bird to grow out of the fixed idea.
10. Warriors don’t get admired for the battles they have won, but for the ones that went wrong, and how they have handled and learned from them. In many unique different ways, on many different days. On many battlefields in Brokenland. The biggest battles were won over time.
“Keep on, just keep on going and become the master of your own impossible story”, the boy said.
The sky smiled. And the bird, settled in.
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