Disguised

It was a little bird, tiny and blue, although at times it could look iridescent because of the reflection of the sun and water on its feathers.

He was just learning to fly, and after a while of soaring through the skies and trees around him, he realised that there was not much more to explore. Everything was too monotonous and polluted.

The little bird had stopped growing, other little birds that had hatched in the same nest and at the same time as him were starting to look bigger and their colours were getting stronger.

-Something wasn't right with me, he thought...

He didn't have a big problem with being different from others, but it seemed that the colours around him were also fading a little more each day.

A moment was enough to get out of there and explore.

On his way he found little animals and similar stories, he identified himself.

He met incredible things, which he thought couldn't possibly exist. The colours came back and the water was wet again. His excitement was such that he pushed and pushed to perpetuate this feeling of freedom.

From the sky everything changes in sight, the claws of enemies become useful tools, the big orange furry tails could bring warmth even in the coldest winter, and the sharp fangs do not tear flesh but tell stories of war and fortune.

He thought he saw more like himself that day. He saw silhouettes and colours but the image was unclear, still, he continued on his way to meet his kind.

He flew faster and stronger - if I had known how fast and strong I am, before... - he said to himself as he flew.

In a rapacious attempt to catch up with them, he turned slightly towards the ground.

Seconds before the impact he understood, they were not others... it was his reflection in the water.

How many seconds can pass before such a collision?

Are thoughts like dreams, breaking the time barrier in order to draw conclusions?

-Of course - he thought in infinite seconds - it wasn't logical that we had a perfect synchronisation, it was never others but my own reflection, once and a hundred times...

Water was not something new to him, he knew it since the first day of the flight, so why the confusion?

- Something is not right with me - he thought...

He opened his eyes, the conclusions were no longer there, only the pain.

A broken wing and with it the wind, how can you break something unbreakable?

At the foot of his bed, a fox. They say that foxes are his biggest predator, so why didn't this one eat him, what did he want from him? And how had it woken up in its den?

The fox guarded it, day and night, with almost a religious devotion. He fed it and hid it for a long time while other predators roamed around.

In time, the wing was repaired and the word freedom had some meaning again.

These were difficult times, there was a major imbalance between species, and the predators had found a way to be almost invisible.

"The world is not what it once was", many said.

The fox said it too, told him every chance he got, that he was safe with him, as long as he didn't try to fly again.

Confusion disguised as love blinded the guardian, fear put chains on his paws, the same chains he used to hold his guest, who was beginning to look more like a prisoner. It was not his fault, it was life. Life and nature can dismember its creation without mercy.

-You are beautiful," said the fox, "I won't let anything happen to you," he repeated every day.

In any case, for a predator he had been quite docile, there was no reason not to believe him, and to tell the truth, he wasn't lying. He wasn't lying, and neither was his nature. The predator exists to make sense of control. The predator sets the pace at which the gears turn.

The prey, on the other hand, must flow, like the water in which the little bird was reflected that day. It does not compete on strength or skill, it competes on strategy. Some preys have been seen to bathe in the excrement of their predators, the scent penetrates into their tissues and travels straight to the core of their system, the art of deception.

It was undoubtedly the fox scent that made it different now, not only had it been able to fool other predators, it was so convincing that it was beginning to fool the reflex itself.

The wings stopped growing, it was the resistance to that smell, and wings don't like to change the smell.

- Something is not right with me – he thought...

The day he decided to shape his own destiny he left his tree, in his feathers the weight of fear, and inexperience in his beak, the turbulence of flight created mental mirages. He knew he needed a counterbalance, but how to get it?

From the sky everything changes in sight, the foxes' dens are no longer a graveyard but a refuge, and the foxes change from predators to protectors.

It was just a fox, nothing special, - just a fox - he thought each and every time from his branch. However, that day he noticed something different with this one.

-I never learned to sing," said the little bird to himself.

Moments before the impact, he could see the den, the same den he had watched that fox entering for weeks. The same one in which he had seen him sing.

-Foxes don't sing. Do they?... Maybe he can teach me, he said.

The collision was imminent, but this time he had a unique opportunity, to fall close to the den, the same den that had ceased to be a den and had become a shelter. How many seconds can pass before such a collision?

Water can be as hard as steel if the instant allows it or as propitious as the rain after a great drought. Life and nature can rebuild their creation without hesitation. The river favoured his fate and in a great rush, the current swept him to the foot of the den.

The fox was singing inside his den when he heard the blow. At the foot of his favourite root was a little blue bird, broken, his eyes were closed but his life was not. He dragged him into his burrow and waited for him to open his eyes. He never thought of eating him, his hunger had long been satiated in other ways. He had always wondered what it would feel like to cross the skies. When it recovered it would probably lend him its wings, so he decided to take care of him.

When the wing had recovered, they tried, more than once even, but foxes don't fly and they are also quite heavy. His nature did not lie, he was never going to fly. He thought it would be impossible to look after him in the sky, so he decided to forbid him to fly. The little bird stopped flying but eventually learned to sing. Finally, he didn't need to anymore, he had learned to sing and didn't have to worry about crashing into the water again, and maybe flying wasn't necessary after all.

The doors and windows were getting smaller and smaller, less and less light was coming in to illuminate the burrow, less and less radiation was warming the walls, the burrow was cold in summer. Something new was happening, the little bird could feel how the wings stopped shining, the lack of sun and wind perhaps, the lack of movement or overthinking probably.

- Something is not right with me - he thought. -Or was I never a bird at all?

- The fox stopped singing.