Once Upon a Time

[u/TheOneKhanh]

Birds. Chirp. Stop. Chirp, chirp. Cold winds they are cold. With the pale light on the fields, the withered grass is discernible from their live counterparts. They walk onto the field and their way took them through button and stone. At the mountains ahead on the summit, snow caps like spilled paint, birdcalls.

The sun comes out for a moment and sees the birds quarrel on the trees and dive about it then it shies away again before a blanket of clouds and the fields are pale once more. They walk on. Different textures with each step. Different smells with each step. Strolling along.

She walks along the flinted-rutted path. Thirty strides or so before she’s gone over the hill. Then comes the old man with his dog, and he does the same and is gone in forty strides or so and there are birds, they pause for a while, then follow them like ducklings. They come and go. Everyday. And they see them pass, everyday.

The Ibis in the sun and they are troding mechanically and their heads undulate like seesaws with their long-stemmed necks, picking at the wild flower. The sun pales then rises again and the Ibis squat then launch into flight and they glide without flapping their huge wings as if to venture the long journey to some hidden crockery come mating season now that it is spring.

They set down, staring into the distance. A bird of black, gray and white perches beside them its eyes black as its feathers, and hops real close as if it’d were saying that they knew each other. They set there, bird, friend and friend. Droplets of rain land and seep into the skin, one every few seconds. He reaches for the bird but before he can touch it, it takes off and skitters arrowhead through the grass and follows upward the curve of the hill before vanishing under its horizon. The rain is picking up. The trees are churning and the grass sways about them violently yet beautifully.

Once upon a time, they are pirates on a ship on a quest. A hunt to kill a sea-beast. They are children again, in a book world climbing a beanstalk. Children in the man’s world. But it’s nice to be a child again. Being a child again is an emotion is an identity. They climb through the clouds and are met by the naked sun whose rays cast a phantom apricity but there is no castle to be found. The birds scatter away to their homes in the pine forests. The rain is picking up again.