By Annika Miron

(For the best sister in the world)

A small blue birdie hated being stuck in a cage. She would constantly chirp away at all the things that were bad about being in a cage. 

Too small, she said. 

Too rusty, she said. 

Too lonely, she said. 

She started as a baby blue, barley the size of a maple leaf, but then the spacious cage became crowded as she grew in age.

She didn’t fit anymore. 

But regardless it stayed locked.

She knew this so she sat sulking, only having her wing to cover her sunken face while the rain poured into every crevice of the cage. 

She wailed, screeching as her body shook. She sat alone in the storm, her warm tears replacing the warm wings her mother used to wrap her in. 

Soon, other birds started approaching her cage, wondering why a bird with capable wings would choose to stay in a cage. 

“I don’t choose to stay here,” she whined obnoxiously before she finalized, “it’s locked.”

They all pitied the lanky blue bird pushing and pulling with their beaks, trying to break the mistreated little bird out of her misery.

But nothing prevailed. She really was stuck. 

The crowds around her seemed to diminish and her life soon became a cautionary tale. The years flew by as she was crowned with the title of “Unlucky Blue.” For she did not have a broken wing, or an unsteady heart, she was simply frozen, stuck in a cage that was withering away with her bones as a package deal. 

Every year on her birthday she would replace childish wishes with prayers that someone would cover her with cement. 

For she preferred to become a statue and be revered like the Greek gods than be alive and a reminder for all birds on the other side of her cage. 

But one seemingly unlucky year on her 20th birthday, she stopped mid-prayer as she squinted, surprised as a familiar bird went flying right at her. 

It was her mother. 

Her worn out rage simmered, like a boiling pot as she immediately started screeching at her mother, “I cannot believe you left your own daughter locked in a cage for eternity!”

Ugly words started spewing out her beak as she listed all the reasons her mother was vile. 

Twenty insults for twenty years of her life. It seemed fitting after all. But as the last insult tried to infiltrate her rotten cell and hit her mothers heart, she smiled warmly, like her words had no effect at all.

“My dear baby blue, just open the door.” She said knowingly, acting as if she was an omniscient god. 

 “Have you been listening to a word I said? It’s locked!” She yelled, disgusted that her mother had such a brainless solution to her lifelong affliction.

“Have you ever actually tried to open it before?” She said softly, as if humming a tune to stop a panic attack.

“Every bird of every color and shape has tried opening my door yet no one has succeeded!” She cried, her anger revealing years and years of desperation. 

The mother simply shook her head. 

“I didn’t ask about others, I asked about you. You are the one inside the cage after all.”

The unlucky blue then realized what her mother was insinuating. She lifted her dented wings from the walls and gently inched the door open with her beak.

There was a creak before the door opened halfway.

Petrified with the realization that she had ruined her entire life by brainwashing herself, she crashed backwards, her wings trembling, and her tiny heart aching as it begged to be released from its own cages of ribs. 

The mothers eyes glinted with excitement for the first time since unlucky blue had seen her. 

“Do you feel that! That’s what it feels to be alive!” She says with unbridled happiness as she continues, “But I’m upset to see that you’ve been too afraid to be alive and have been surviving instead.”

“Whatever do I have to be afraid about?” Unlucky blue asked, for she had not experienced enough of the world to be afraid of anything. 

“Flying.”

That is the one thing birds were created to do. It had been common knowledge that every bird had to know. Yet she was too afraid to fail that she never tried at all. 

With a hesitant flutter, the once “Unlucky Blue” felt the weight of her mother’s words sink deep into her fragile heart. She had clung so tightly to the safety of her cage, fearing the vastness of the sky and the uncertainty that came with flight. But now, with the door ajar, the open expanse beckoned her with both promise and peril.

Her mother’s gaze softened, recognizing the fear that clouded her daughter’s eyes. “Every bird stumbles before they soar,” she whispered, her voice a gentle caress against the stormy winds that raged within the young bird’s soul.

She untensed her wings in false hope before she slipped and fell to the sharp rocks beckoning her to death as the wind whistled in her ear, like a siren song luring men into traps. 

Every alarm in her head rang as she flapped her wings in instinct, trying to recover the twenty wasted years of her life. 

Closing her eyes as the rocks felt closer and closer, she tried one more push before accepting her fate and as she exhaled her last breath, the whistling in her ear stopping. 

She thought she had died as she felt nothing. 

But in fact her wings were spread wide as the sky finally worked in her favor, not a cloudy sky for her to cover her wings with. 

For the first time in her life, she felt hope, for she was finally free. 

Not of the cage, but of her thoughts. For these thoughts have plagued more people than illness and she was finally free. 

That seemed pretty lucky to her. 

–

Annika Miron lives in Guatemala City with her homey family of five. She writes to inspire and hopes to become an author living in London. Her notes app is her secret best friend where she believes bestselling book ideas are sitting idly waiting to be written.