The Sparrow And The Machines

I saw a little bird in the factory I work in last night. A pile of feathers wound together by flesh and bone. He was fluttering around twenty feet up in the racks, smashing into the steel beams, unable to find his way out. Images flashed in my head of finding the bird in a week, featherless and emaciated, dead from exhaustion and starvation. Crushed beneath a pallet of merchandise. It mad me sad. But still I watched him struggle helplessly above the workers who struggled helplessly at their machines. And then without warning he darted down and shot towards the door, stopping to rest on the time clock just before reaching the great outdoors. Go little bird, I thought to myself, don't stop now your so close. But he didn't, he just stared outside, like I have so many times before. And he stayed there, for what seemed like forever, before taking flight and gliding gently to freedom. In silent contemplation at my machine, fighting my own struggle against society, I realized that I was the bird.