Bars By Emanuel Cilenti

Bars

By Emanuel Cilenti

     Dark. It's all dark here. The walls are colored by darkness and darkness. I haven't seen sunlight for a long time. I live in endless agony. They abandoned me in this forgotten place. It's cold, very cold, but not the usual cold that makes your teeth chatter, no. The cold I'm talking about is what freezes your soul until it explodes into many small fragments crystal-like, and those little shattered crystals abandoned on a dirty and bloody floor are my days spent and lost in this animal cage.

     Considered by all to be a beast, they throw my food from a small rectangular slot at the base of the heavy and rusty door. I ask myself: but perhaps I have undergone a genetic mutation, or a metamorphosis of Kafkaesque memory? Have I become a dog? Every day, I have to collect food from the ground, is all this dignity? Where have human rights gone? I wonder am I still a human being? Every now and then a puff of air enters from a small opening placed high up, almost to the ceiling, a small hole with large black bars, like death.

     I finished my daily meal, then I throw the steel plate over the crack in the door. I don't know what time it is. I don't know what day it is. .I close my eyes. Suddenly, I hear the song similar to that of a bird, a dream, or am I awake ? I open my eyes from the small opening at the top. I see the shadow of a bird. I have difficulty understanding what breed it is. The silence in the room is interrupted by the words of the animal.

     “Hi, what's your name? But can you speak? Of course, I'm an Indian blackbird, what do you think?"

     “I don't see you well. I only see your shadow reflected on a wall”.

     The Indian blackbird with a light and slow flight glides into the room until it alights on my bed. I can hardly see his sparkling eyes, looking at me curiously.

     “So what's your name?”

     “Franco.”

     “What's your name?”

     “Charlie?”

     "An unusual name for an Indian blackbird.”

      “My master gave it to me.”

      “Master?”

     “Are you also a slave then?”

     “I was a slave, but I managed to escape.”

     “Blessed are you! How do I envy you, and how did you succeed?”

     “I took advantage of an oversight of my master.”

     “What oversight?”

     “My owner was cleaning the cage and had left the little step slightly closed. He had gone away to put some food in my small manger. I approached the opening of the cage and gave a jerk with my beak to the little step, then I ran away. I have finally been flying free in the sky for two days.”

     “You're lucky. I don't think I'll get out of here anytime soon.”

     “Why are you here?”

     “I killed a woman.”

     “It was a bad thing you did. Who was it?”

     “My wife.”

     “why?”

     “She was cheating on me.”

     “I'm sorry.”

     “Yeah, even if I do, I deserved it. I'm a drunkard. I hit her many times. I had to die, not her, and only now did I understand.”

     For a moment there is silence in the room, I realize that Charlie is looking insistently at the pajamas I am wearing.

     “Why are you looking at me like that?”

     “Because the stripes of your pajamas remind me of the bars in my cage. They draw them on purpose, to remind you every moment that you are no longer free, after all the bars are used for this to destroy your dreams and your freedom.”

    Silence fell in the room again. In my head hover the words spoken before by the Indian blackbird.

      “I have finally been flying free in the sky for two days.”

     “I feel envy and anger. I would like to shatter this cell. I can no longer stand this slavery, then I think of her, Isabel, my wife. I would like to tell you how sorry I am for what I did. Anger assails me.”

    “Oh well, now I fly away. It was a pleasure, goodbye.”

     “No wait! Please, give me a hug before you fly away. It has been a long time since I heard a voice that is human or animal. It has been a long time since I talked to anybody anymore. I would like to say thank you. Come here.”

     I take Charlie with strength and in my hands I hold him tightly until he is completely crushed.

     I cannot bear the freedom of animals and the slavery of humans! I am beside myself. I no longer understand anything. I have lost the light of reason. His words echo, even louder in my ears.

     “I have been flying free in the sky for two days.”

     A man can fly with wings of bird? 

     They treated me like a beast in here. It's time to act like one. I look at Charlie's now lifeless body.

      “Forgive me my friend, but your sacrifice was not in vain. You lost your freedom to give it to me.”

     I break a claw from Charlie's paw, and use it as a scalpel to cut his chest. Now that it's all open, I take out the entrails. I eat them, gagging insistently assault me. I resist, nothing and no one will be able to stop my plan, after I devoured the insides of the blackbird. I curl up and slowly break my bones. The pain is excruciating! I want to scream, but I bite my tongue. Blood comes out of my mouth profusely. I finally reached the right length to wear Charlie's carcass. With some difficulties, I book in I fly. I arrive behind the window and look at the bars for the last time.

     “Damn bars! You will not see me again!”

     A gust of wind approaches.

      I ride it letting myself be carried away. I breathe deeply. The scent of freedom is beautiful. I begin to fly toward the horizon, and no longer even feel the pain of metamorphosis. “

     “Wait for me my love. I'm on my way!”

      I think of Isabel.

    I want to see her again. I love her madly. A few more beats of my wings and I will finally be able to rest forever next to her. But all of a sudden, I see a flash and hear the sound of  loud thunder coming from the sky. A lightning strikes me in full. I fall whirlwind, perhaps I will die, perhaps I am already dead, or perhaps it is God punishing me for what I have done in my life. For what I did to the blackbird or for the immoral and blasphemous metamorphosis. But why not also punish the silkworm when it becomes a splendid butterfly?

    Ah, yes, it's true.

     He was created like this, that is his nature, but for my selfishness that I nicknamed, freedom, I challenged nature. Science, God, then I deserve to die. I fall to the ground, still find the strength of a last, faint, and smile. I am almost happy to die. I will not see Isabel again, and this pains me very much, but at least now I am free, with no more bars to imprison the flight of my freedom. A last breath, a last trickle of sweat, the last drop of blood that sinks into the darkness of the earth.

    “Goodbye bars. Goodbye, my sweet and beloved Isabel!”

     I give this last greeting to my beloved in the wind.