cuckoo

The Cuckoo

by

macko szechno

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The cuckoo was maudlin. It had been so for days, much to everyone’s astonishment: of all the birds that populated God’s-World the cuckoo was famed for its carefree—and often reckless—nature. But now, from dawn to dusk it went slowly about its business without song and with a tear ever present in the corner of its eye. A defeated air clung to the bird wherever it was seen and even its friend the blue tit did not know exactly what haunted the cuckoo so.

‘Why are you down?’ asked the blue tit as it rested briefly between catching dragonflies.

The cuckoo merely shrugged, as it dourly swallowed the fly it itself had caught. With a flutter of its wings, it sped off before its interrogator could continue.

The blue tit, left behind, sighed once for its friend’s sadness and then, seeing a particularly fat bluebottle, hopped off its perch to begin its feeding afresh.

Far away, wearied from such a long flight, the cuckoo alighted on a branch high up in an old oak tree. God’s-World looked so large from up here in the highest branches of the old oak, it thought. Below a canopy of green stretched in every direction, until it met the canopy of soft white cotton-bud-like sky. Down below everything was close-by. Up here, everything was impossibly far away. As if, the cuckoo thought, up here no one can get me and I am safe from their questioning and their prying and their happiness.

Only the sadness remained with the cuckoo so far away from its friends.

Night approached and brought with it its chill. The cuckoo huddled its head forlornly further into chest and wrapped its wings about it. Unseen by the sleeping cuckoo the night sky cleared to reveal a heaven-full of stars, all twinkling down on the little bird. It grew colder as the night progressed, making it hard for the cuckoo to sleep soundly.

Fitfully, it passed the night through, waking properly only at the first hint of dawn. The corner of its eye hurt from the cold of the tear frozen there. It legs, unprotected from the cold, were stiff and unresponsive. Its wings felt as hard as turtle-shell as it struggled to free its head from their embrace. Slowly, the cuckoo turned to face the rising sun of a new day.

‘Why are you so sad, dear little bird?’

The cuckoo turned again, this time slowly, surprise registering dimly in its cold mind. Through eyes partly concealed, it could make out the outline of something hovering close to its perch. The outline landed close by.

‘I am sad,’ the cuckoo admitted, ‘because I have lost my young.’

The blurred outline appeared to smile. ‘But that is what cuckoos do.’

The cuckoo bowed its head slightly and said into its chest feathers, ‘I know, but it doesn’t make it hurt any the less.’

‘Are you not happy that your young will be well fed in your absence, while you are left free to wander and to soar as your heart dictates?’

The cuckoo shook its head softly. ‘My heart dictates that I should be with my young.’

‘No, it doesn’t’, the outline chided. ‘You are governed by your instincts and your instincts tell you to lay your eggs in another’s nest. Your instincts dictate your behaviour. Your heart merely dictates your response to those instincts. It cannot be otherwise.’

‘Then why do I feel so sad?’

The cuckoo made out a sigh that seemed to emanate from the outline. ‘You are not really sad,’ the outline answered finally.

‘I feel sad!’ the cuckoo retorted angrily.

‘You cannot be so,’ the outline responded, calmly.

‘And why?’ the cuckoo countered, frustration laden its voice.

The frozen tear began to melt in the warmth of the new sun. Blinking to free the excess water, to free its eyes, to see the figure behind the blurred outline. The cuckoo turned its now clear eyes to face the outline directly and saw itself.

‘Because that is not the way of it,’ the other said. ‘You are a cuckoo, like me. You do not feel such things. You are not put upon God’s-World to feel such things.’

The cuckoo blinked a final tear away and said, ‘But, I do not understand, still. Why is it that the others feel so for their own and I’m supposed to feel nothing? What’s wrong with me. Can you fix me?’

‘Nothing is wrong with you. Be at peace with yourself. You are pure. You are as designed and no more.’

‘But…surely the sum of the parts adds up to more than the parts on their own?’

‘Maybe. But know that you are at the pinnacle of your design. You are. You exist. And you should feel this. That this is a mystery is not for you to puzzle over; not something for you to unravel, decode or to waste your time over. It is not a mystery meant for you.’

‘But, my young,’ the cuckoo said, plaintively.

‘Your young are not informed by you. Your offspring are shaped by the instinct that lies buried with in themselves. Your young are formed from the same matter as you and then experience will rob you and your young of any similarities. Life, not your heart, will dictate your young’s path through time. This is so, even had you the instinct to nurse them through childhood. Even if you had it in you to bring your young up, your young were never a part of you. Let them go.’

The cuckoo nodded to itself, perceiving the words spoken to it as true.

‘Let them go, for they were never yours to keep.’

The cuckoo blinked and the other, with a subtle swish of its wings, launched itself from the perch. ‘Are you my mother?’ the cuckoo cried after it.

‘I do not know. Maybe…what does it matter?’ the answer came back.

The cuckoo turned its thoughts towards its friends. They would die some day. Plucked from the air or huddled against the cold of winter or weakened by age; they would die. And the cuckoo wished to return to them. Especially, the blue tit who had shown it care.

Launching itself from its perch, the cuckoo flew home and thought, my young shall outlast me. And their young shall outlast my young. And their young shall outlast them… And to what end? For what purpose do we strive?

And the inorganic universe itself answered back with all its inanimate might in words of lead: to give me speech when I cannot speak, to listen when I cannot hear, to see when I cannot see, to be the pinnacle of your design. That is your purpose.

Your purpose is to exist and then to be replaced.

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