Black…white. Nothing can be in black and white as it is here. But the blackness is as profane as the white is sacred—it’s the myth of colors. Today they are just stating facts. The crows flock around as the Bluebird watches. They gather the facts to assess the Bluebird’s flight patterns of life. What the Bluebird would have thought could never be assessed because it is such a huge tome of memories full of incidents, accidents and consequences of both. The crows know better and they cower over details and reduce it to a docket number. That’s all it was—thirteen years reduced to a label: 378 of 2007.
The wings of satin and cotton whish around and dispense the odor of sweat, hard work, manipulation, money, arrogance, sarcasm, spirit and hope…the crows gather in closer, in anticipation of their share of the castaway bread. Numbers roll out—488 of 2007, 571 of 2007, and a crow swoops on a thick file and flies off as if everything will now be settled in haste.
Nothing is in haste here, except the waiting. Only the waiting is hurried by the tension and anticipation. The Bluebird perches and looks around. Just a number now—all the years of flying and nesting and flying again. As the crows throw their piercing stares and questioning glances, the Bluebird isn’t afraid but thinks—how is it that the crows preside over the courts of justice? You would think that justice prevails in temples of silence but the din is unending.
And then suddenly silence. The whirr of the fans, the whimper of the death of expectations—and then the final scratch of a pen.
Winter always thaws into spring. Despite the crows cawing, a bluebird will sing.
