Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Fly Again

Sarah was a young girl both pretty and fragile. Her whole world was covered in white: her bed, sheet, and the bandage entwined around her limbs. The doctor said the bleeding could one day be cured. He had never told her when. Her life, as was told, was to stay on bed without shifting a muscle. However, she would dare a inch beyond that and peek out her large bedroom window to see the subjacent street.

The street in front of Sarah’s apartment was a market place. It was full of stands, carriage, and people shouting prices to each other. It was dirty and messy. Comparing to this, Sarah’s white room was a high up sanctuary. But, Sarah, like most of kids, views their world without realistic prejudice and practical assumption. For her, the world outside was colorful, amazing and full of wonders.

Being on bed whole day made Sarah quite a drawer. She drew every thing in the small frame of her limited observation. Those include traders, stands, carriages, roofs and birds. A professional artist would think that her drawing lacks details. She missed how people’s expressions were bothered and unhappy, how the horses driving carriage were dropping their head in fatigue and how the street was messy and dirty. However, for the common eye like mine, Sarah’s drawings were absolutely beautiful. Drawing birds was Sarah’s specialty. Birds refer to sparrows, crows and occasional gulls. Sarah would give them each a pair of exaggerated large and beautiful wings like those of angels for such was her impression of their lives to be like, angels.

Then one day came the small demon of this sad story. It was a tigress cub.

The girl saw the tiny striped furball one day being auctioned on the market. She called her dad and asked him to buy the small cub as her pet. The father, knowing not it was the beginning of his problems, decided it would be good having a living creature around his immobilized daughter. He bought the cub for Sarah. Troubles followed closely behind. Upon arrival, the little beast clawed the girl and made the whole family busy for a whole day calling doctor for Sarah and tying to capture the cub and lock it. In the following days, the matter got even worse. The cub would run and mess up the household and snarl loudly and show hostility to the host who feeds it.

Sarah might think the animal would live in harmony with humans. It was a naïve girly notion indeed. The cub was from wildness and possessed none the quiet and cultivated mindset of Sarah’s. She soon gave up on letting the cat approach her and surrender her interaction with the cub to her mere observation of cub clawing the window and ramming the door in vain attempt to escape. Sometimes, she was psycho enough to talk to the beast. Then she would ask why the little creature was so full of anger and resolve, what had happened in its past? “Have they killed your parents?” The only answer from the cub was a sound snarl.

Then the whole house was hating the beast. When it was not on Sarah’s eyes, they would take the cub and beat it with a rod. That adds on how the female tiger cub was playing ruthlessly made it always appeared with bruises, but odd enough, the girl wouldn’t give up the little beast neither did it die. To the surprise of the people who hated it, the half-fed cub grows in a fairy-tale rate.

In the meantime, people around Sarah started to notice her change. It first appeared as her illness was worsened and her bleeding took a much higher frequency. one day, one of the maids walked into Sarah’s room and dropped breakfast in shock seeing Sarah standing in front of window. The father talked to the girl asking why she was moving her body but Sarah wouldn’t say anything other than “sorry”.

In those days, Sarah gave up her drawings. She would get off bed when nobody was in her room and join the cub in its play. It started to show affections to the girl and it did much to lighten her heart. She even dare to open her window letting air carrying wild savor and disease into her room.

Sarah’s family was confused in girls continually worsened bleeding and her obvious joy. Many had talked to the girl advising her not to use her body and worsen her condition. One of them said to Sarah “don’t give up on life, don’t give up on what tomorrow promises.” She looked deep into his eyes and answered “don’t give up on life indeed.”

After diagnosis, doctor told Sarah’s father she wouldn’t hold for long. The father sadly accepted the news. He talked to the girl telling her he wouldn’t give up on his daughter and she should live as best as she could. The father kept his promise and carry out a wish by his daughter.

It was during the time when Sarah was getting weaker. By her wish, the tigress cub was still in her room although it was a larger cub by then. She tried to portray her favorite pet, but soon found out it was difficult to do so. The cub was moving constantly, and it was hard to capture its pose and the dazzling dynamics of its movement. She didn’t wait for cub to go asleep for she didn’t want to portray her cub sleeping. So she decided to use her imagination to draw a standing tigress cub. Upon finish, she looked at her drawing and compared it to the cub. The cub on her paper was much larger and matured as if it was what the cub would look like a few years forward, a real tigress. Tears streamed down her pale cheek as she thought how happy she would be to see cub like that one day. Just than, as if lighting split her mind, she started to draw, rapidly. A new object appeared on tigress’s back. It extended its feather to form a pair of white, angel-like wings. It was a pair of wings she used to draw on birds, but then it was on tigress. It gives the cub a solemn and heavenly looking she just stared in awe. She called her father and told him her wish for the cub to be release to the wild. “but it will never survive out there” argued the man. She put a finger on her mouth gently hushed him. “Don’t give up on life; don’t give up on tomorrow’s promise.” She said softly.

That was the last picture she ever drew, and the last wish by her. The cub was never heard of after release and some still thought it was the devil behind this fatal tragedy.

Now the girl was gone. But we can’t easily forget her, because a lot of our dreams are like Sarah, both pretty and fragile. We peek out behind the watch glass but dare not to probe in fear of it would shatter. Then dream comes as a cub, strong, impatient. It never stopped to wait its cue. Wings are as easily taking flight as breaking down, but dreams are also a tigress cub, who will bleed, persist, grow, wings rebuilt, and fly again.

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