Day's End

It was like a dream state trance, where A thousand minds had collided into the vision of a single being, pulsing in a spectacular flare in front of my face. The globe of intense yellow disappeared behind the rolling blue hills that seemed to stretch for an eternity. Purposeful flutters of yellow leaked through the purple haze, streaked with shades of pink softer than the warmest of summer days. This was life from a nest. Here I have drawn my breaths for three bright nights, and three long days. Here I have watched the world unfold merely a trees length below. How is this so? How am I me? How has this all come to be?

The things that are here in being are like no other, but I wanted to find the ends of these rolling hills, and experience the source of these flaring spectacles. I have experienced all that is here in the confines of this nest, and want to join the birds above, flying into the distant fading sky. These lights are escaping me and I don't want to wait for what seems like an eternity of loneliness for another flare of colour to give back the sky before me. This is where my story truly begins; this is where I leap like I am meant to leap, glide like I know deep within that I am meant to glide, and fly towards a lifetime of adventure.
I leap with that of utmost confidence, leaving behind what I once knew, all the while hoping that I will one day meet my unborn brothers and sisters out in the open world beyond this nest.

The thought of what could become reality created a rush that surged through my body with a sensation that ruffled my tail and shook my gangly legs. The icy pellets of wind struck my face with piercing sharpness. Before me dropped a thousand miles of darkness. There were no dancing colours in front of me. The rolling hills were no more than a past memory of hopes that had once filled my sleeping conscience. It was as though the Earth had fallen away, and what remained was a gaping hole of nothingness, ready to swallow me as though I were but an insignificant speck. I was not flying, but falling; flailing helplessly into the void. Is this where my story ends?

Nobody ever heard my inner turmoils, the world never felt my impact; I never changed a life. Those rolling hills, that flare of colour that I was set on but seconds ago, I now realise are just things that will always be visible to the admiring eye. Yet the daze that graced my vision lifted my gaze from the rising darkness beneath my feet. If only I had looked around from the nest that had so generously held me aloft from this darkness; if only I could see that globe of yellow explode into a thousand colours once more. My brothers, my sisters; they will never feel my presence, and I shall never feel theirs, never will we share thoughts and laughter.

The darkness struck with sharp intensity, giving me a sudden respect for the sheer size of the Earth on which I had lived. The sudden stoppage was overwhelmingly discomforting, yet momentarily, I felt somewhat consoled by the softness that welcomed me on the forest floor. Within my own little universe, it was a monumental moment, the pinnacle of my life. The crunching of bones, the popping of my inner frame. It was a gracefully chaotic sensation. A mere moment in time, embraced by the darkness surrounding my ending as though it were nothing but a minor speck in perspective with the universe and its unending secrets.

My life ended just three days into being, no soul left my body. I just lay there, lifeless, trapped forever on the earth that had both birthed, and killed me. The crowding trees canopied over me like expressionless onlookers, never mourning the loss, but instead blocking the day's end spectacle from ever gracing my vision again.