The Birdcage

Locked up in a golden birdcage that dangled delicately from the ceiling like a chandelier was a young woman with a sweet voice.

She wondered if she’d ever known freedom and fresh air, if she’d ever been able to spread her wings and fly. She thought she remembered doing so, but it could all just have been a fleeting fairytale of a dream.

Every evening the old man walked into the ballroom, using an old cane for support and every night he looked up at the hanging cage, waiting for the singing to begin, anxiously anticipating the newest songs his pet bird may have conjured up.

And every evening the young woman became aware of the old man’s foul presence. She hated him and feared him and by then knew how to make him disappear for temporary relief. When the moon rose into the dark, star stained sky, and glowed round and full and white, she opened her mouth and let her sadness, anger, confusion, and dreams flow from her mouth. When she was too tired to think or sing, the old man would leave, his wooden cane thumping along the floor, and he’d disappear to his room that smelled of must and rot and he would sleep.

And then there was the boy. The orphan boy with clothes too small and feet too big and nowhere else to go but that rundown mansion that only held a caged girl and an ancient, heartless man.

When the old man’s snores reached the boys ears where he sat and waited to do the only thing he knew how to do, he rose and stole through the dark, shadowed halls, and out to the ballroom, where he ascended the spiral stairs to the girl’s cage. It was his job to leave the girl her food: juicy, luscious fruit and sweet wines that rested warm in her belly and lulled her into sleep.

He had a fear. What if the girl ever tried to escape? The old man hardly talked to the boy, but when he did, it was a cold warning to never let the girl leave—keep her in her cage, don’t get close to her. What if he messed up? He had no one else who would take him in and so he lived in constant worry.

The boy fed the girl then, watching her from the corner of his eye. The smell of the fruit made his stomach heave in nausea and the juice made his hands sticky and hued a light pinkish orange. The girl watched him back, huddled in the corner, knees pulled to her chest. Although he’d been feeding her for a year, she still did not trust him; she trusted no one.

A pomegranate fell from the boys shaking, nervous hands and rolled to the girl’s bare feet.

“I’m sorry,” the boy apologized without thinking. Surely speaking was not breaking the rules…correct?

She didn’t answer, just picked up the fruit and studied it with large blue eyes. The stare was so hard and so deep, so wet and so sad, that the boy turned and left, his stomach lurching and limbs shaking.

He lied in his bed that night, wishing he could sleep, wishing he could dream, wishing he could go back to the girl and hear her story and find why the man wanted her so badly.

So when the next night fell heavily around the mansion, the boy crept from his bed and down into the shadows of the ballroom, waiting for the old man to enter. Finally he did, his feet shuffling and a stench of decay trailing behind him. He sat beneath the cage and the girl stood, clutching the bars of her cage and she sang in her own language.

The song sent the boy to a land of waterfalls and green plants, of bight flowers with soft petals, of trees bedecked with heavy fruit that dragged down its branches. For a moment…he was whole.

But all too soon it was over and the old man was staggering off to bed and the boy was left in dust and darkness. He abandoned his hiding place and went up to the birdcage to leave the girl her food. She eyed him tiredly, just hoping he’d keep his distance because she wouldn’t be able to get away if he decided to try anything.

After the fruit was carefully dumped into the food tray, the boy slowly crouched down before the girl and he stared at him with fear and curiosity in her deep oceans of eyes.

“You’ve got a beautiful voice. Now I know why the old man keeps you here for himself. You’re sad, though, aren’t you? You just want to be loose and free…and so do I.”

The girl shook and trembled so violently that her red hair flowed down around her like bloody cataracts, and it was like a bird ruffling its crimson feathers. The boy sighed and left but days went by and yet he returned. He’d talk in a ghost of a whisper to the girl, telling of his deceased parents and his old home in a cottage in the center of a forest, and she’d cock her head and listen intently. Then the boy would leave, rejuvenated and happy and covered in sticky fruit pulp, coming early the next night to hear her addicting, enchanting voice again and again and again.

One night when the moon had made its perilous journey up to the sky and shooting stars fell around the dilapidated mansion like rain from the clouds, the boy woke to hear the old man’s raspy shouts, filled with anger and pauses to cough and hack into.

He rose and stole through the dark house to the ballroom. The antique relic of a man stood under the birdcage, cursing and screaming and his pet girl cowered on hands and knees up above.

“Leave her alone!” the boy shouted, running at the old man, but being pushed away by the wooden, scarred cane.

“Sixty-five years! Sixty-five years and only now does she decide to be disobedient? What have you been doing to her, boy? I’ll kill you! I’ll kill the both of you!”

The boy dodged a blow from the cane and climbed the stairs to the cage. He opened the door and reached out his hand for the girl.

“Come on. Please. I’ll bring you to my old home and you’ll be able to do whatever you want, whenever you want. Come here.

She took a cautious step to him, her movements graceful and flowing like water and silk.

“Don’t! You know not what you’re doing!” the man yelled, clutching at his heart as he coughed around his words. “She must not leave the cage!”

“Stop being selfish! Come, girl. Come.”

Her hand fell into the boy’s warm palm and she took her first step from the cage that always held her. And her skin crawled backward from her toes and up her leg, disappearing under her dress, revealing pearly white ebony bones that crumbled and disintegrated, falling down around the old man like snow. Her screams echoed around the room, full of pain but still strangely beautiful, like all of her songs. Her hands turned to bone and clawed out for salvation until they too turned to dust and then…then she was gone. Only her dress made of gossamer lace was left floating to the floor, exploding into feathers when it landed at the man’s feet.

“No!” the man wailed, falling to his knees and pulling the soft feathers to his arms. “No! My bird, my pet, my love!”

“I’m sorry…I didn’t know. I had no idea…” the boy whispered, sinking to his knees, sending up a cloud of fine bone dust around him.

“She was given to me when I was your age. I was told to never let her go from the cage and she’d always sing for me. The cage kept her in and it kept her young. It made her live.” He sobbed and continued, “I always wanted to let her go, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t lose her. I loved her. Now look what you did! Look what you’ve done!” he shrieked. And with that, his eyes widened and he grasped his chest, gasping for air…and then all was still. He fell forward into the downy feathers and never rose again.

As for the boy, he left the decrepit manor, a sad song on his lips and a dream of a captivating young woman, singing in a land of waterfalls and soft flowers and trees that were filled with sweet fruit that would fall into a hungry man’s palm with just the slightest touch. And now finally free, he flew for the girl and himself, refusing to ever be caged again.

fin