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Fallen Feathers

Once upon a time, there lived a girl in New Hampshire.
She was Grace. She had a strange hobby of collecting feathers which fell from the wings of birds.
Her father had asked her once why she liked collecting feathers. She replied, "It is the only good thing I'll do on this earth." This was her reply when she was only eleven years old.

What made her father dumbfounded was the fact that his daughter, who was barely stepping into teens, was talking in parables.
Her father calmly smiled to reassure her that he believed her. He never did.  Why? Her father never bothered to decipher the parable because somewhere, in his clear conscience, he mistook her parable for her innocence. 

Grace grew up to be a very smart woman. For a girl who could speak in parables when she was eleven, it was obvious she would turn out to be a bright woman.

Wherever she went, she carried a book. It was thicker than two thesauruses. She would stick the feathers she found on the road or anywhere. She would etch something along with the collected feather. Her friends had always been curious about what she etched when she found the feathers and stuck them in her book.

For many days, she had been looking for a feather from the Quetzal. (below)


                                                         Image source: Google images


She used to go to her college through a little forest which was full of birds and instead of crunchy leaves, there were soft, blue and red feathers which had fallen off the birds. She was in need of a Quetzal feather, and she would complete her book. 
On a Sunday afternoon she was listening to some songs when she saw a feather of Quetzal. It was lying in the middle of the road. She sprinted across her lawn along with her thick book. As soon as she touched the feather, she cried. They were tears of joy. As she was keeping the feather in the middle of the book, she was hit by an oil tanker. She was torn to pieces.

Two weeks had passed. Her father had been gravely silent all these days. He had locked the book in his personal cupboard. He saw the edge of the Quetzal's feather coming out of the pages. He opened that page and read her etchings.
It stated : "I collect these feathers to know the worth of losing the sole reason why people love birds. People, indeed like birds for their unique mixture of colours, but they love birds for their ability to fly. Birds fly because of their wings. As humans, if an integral part of yourself is lost, you would dread and feel empty. But birds seem to have no control on their feathers. "

A feather fallen off a bird's wing was nothing for the bird, but meant wonderful things to Grace.
She understood the degree of difference between the choices of the birds and us. On one hand, birds feel completely fine if one feather falls off, but on the other, we humans are willing to end our lives if a single thing goes a-mess in it.
Be a fallen feather. Have no value from where you come, but have a humungous impact where or on whom you fall upon.That is the power of a fallen feather.⚡️
It was then, that her father regretted smiling in ignorance at her child. Her father realised that his daughter wasn't just talking about anything, but meant deep words. 
Why not just feather? Why Fallen Feather?
Because a fallen thing or a person who realises his mistake, always aims for a comeback stronger than his/its previous goodness.



Comments

  1. Unknown4 May 2018 at 07:11

    I guess the "catch" here is in realising the mistake and not being 'in fallen'. Fall we all will, but will we realise our mistake and accept the grace to be accepted still. This will decide the comeback....for many have fallen and have chosen to remain as fallen due their own folly.
    Great writing Shaon...

    ReplyDelete

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