The Flying

Oh, bird of my soul, fly away now, 

For I possess a hundred fortified towers. 

Rumi 

Julia had always been a friend to birds. Since she was little, she liked to observe their strange movements. She grew up in the countryside, and chickens were her faithful companions during her childhood. She watched them walk clumsily, always looking at the ground for worms, with their spasmodic movements, vacant and expressionless eyes, and guttural clucking. Above all, she was drawn to observing that apparent air of dislocation, as if they were beings lost in time and space. She felt pity, curiosity, and perhaps a bit of fear for them.

When Julia was about six years old, her mother, Sue, gave her a chick. She had never become particularly attached to anything, but this little chick, which she named Gus, turned out to be her perfect friend; she played with him, fed him, cared for him diligently, bathed him, and carried him around as if he were a baby. She even put a bow on his head and pretended he was a lady coming to have tea with her. She wished Gus would behave with more dignity, but she couldn't deny that she liked seeing him run frantically with the pink bow in his beak, knocking over the tea table and spilling the water and cups. She simply found his ridiculous appearance and supreme confusion very funny; she would run after him, laughing uncontrollably.

On the afternoon of Julia's ninth birthday, her grandmother came to visit. She was an old and reserved person with a past that was never discussed or shared by her mother. All that was known was that the grandmother belonged to a time long forgotten, to a generation whose ways and customs had nothing to do with Julia's world. The distance between them was immense and insurmountable.

Her grandmother cared for Julia, but she couldn't express it appropriately. For the birthday, the grandmother couldn't think of a better idea than to make a homemade chicken stew.

Julia, who was playing and running around the yard looking for her chick Gus, could never have guessed the scene awaiting her around the corner of the yard. Seeing her grandmother with a bloody knife and her favourite chick with a broken and exposed neck marked the end of her childhood. Her illusion and innocence floated away in that blood that flowed, mixing with tears of incomprehensible bitterness, black waters that drowned her heart and the little empathy she had left for the humans she called family.

After this incident, things changed considerably in Julia's house. To begin with, eating chicken or even eggs had become a strictly taboo subject. But the most serious consequence was that the resentment and deep sorrow that Julia harbored in her soul from that fateful day never left her, making her antisocial and distrustful, and above all, a very unhappy and sad child.

Julia was aware that the only thing motivating her days was remembering Gus, particularly his eyes, and how, in their apparent and empty transparency, she found a strange solace when thinking about them. Over time, other types of birds, like pigeons and finches, began to appear in Julia's mental space. Her mother had given her a drawing kit, and thus, in an attempt to capture that antediluvian otherness, she found an effective way to bring to reality her yearning to warm the coldness of those soulless and shiny eyes that obsessed her.

She spent many afternoons getting lost in the paths of the surrounding pine forest until she found some lost bird. She then tried to capture it with her gaze and with her pencils. She consumed it intensely, wanting to depict every corner of every feather, every greyish colour, every iridescent note, every scale on those sharp talons they had as feet, every fold of light. She internally prayed to connect with that black and shiny pupil, that abyss of prehistoric emptiness that made her feel a deep and unfathomable sadness. She often wondered if there was a place where she could be happy.

Julia's obsession grew over time, although she called it a hobby. Her mother watched her the same way Julia watched the birds: with a mixture of feelings and astonished confusion.

One rainy afternoon, a crow entered the house kitchen and settled in the middle of the table. Julia, who was drawing a parrot, was amazed to see it. That night she dreamed of the crow. She knew that an ancient crow had inspired many stories and poems, but she never imagined she would see one so close. She dreamed that the crow came to find her, watched her with its black and sinister eye, and told her mythical stories of times when there were no cities, and crows flew between stone walls and fires that gathered distant and small men in circles. When condors and eagles flew together in open skies, where the soul of the earth flowed like wind through the empty bones of the birds.

In her dreams, the crow beckoned Julia to follow, whispering of a hidden realm beyond the pine forests. There, it promised, she would encounter something elusive yet strangely familiar, a key to mending her deepest sorrow. But as the dreams unfolded, they twisted into nightmares, leaving her adrift in a sea of mysterious sensations and conflicting emotions.

Night after night, the dreams with the crow grew longer, and Julia found it increasingly difficult to wake up from them. The black eye of the crow was an omniscient circle that encompassed everything, and its caw echoed in her mind, falling into that abysmal darkness in spirals that turned towards the unknown.

The morning dawned, and the roosters announced it with particular hysteria. As Julia missed her breakfast, Sue entered her room and looked for her, called her insistently, but couldn't find her anywhere. Panicked, she went out to look for her outside the house. Not without first, —and it was a detail that later seemed very curious to her, — having to open the window to let out a small brown sparrow that, inexplicably, had somehow gotten into the room.