The Sparrow … Michael Robles

by Michael Robles The sparrow twitched his neck. The moon’s glow gave the tree branch a subtle comfort, an otherworldly radiance. As he kicked one of his thin, wood-like legs to the left, he felt a tickling sensation. He watched the street lamps flickered on and off, glitching from an abyssal black to a warm yellow. The sparrow hummed to himself a twilight tune. The streets were empty; no one to guide, as of now. In a fast-paced beat, he hopped up to the top branch of the oak tree he was residing in. His ember wings flapped. No breeze, no howling wind from the gods of the sky… just silence. Bliss. The oak tree resided next to a massive structure. The sparrow could hardly see where the concrete palace and the sky met. An endless array of windows stood in a pattern across the giant building. Debating on taking a peek into one, he wondered if any of them were ready. Quickly, he decided against it. I couldn’t possibly fly that high, he thought. No, the trees are where I stay. Close to where they walk.

As his eyes met the ground, the red sparrow shifted his gaze across the street. He saw a man in the corner of his eye resting on a bench. He was rather young, possibly mid-20s. He was wearing a black tee-shirt with a light brown cardigan that draped to his thighs. The sparrow was fixated on his brown boots tapping quite vigorously. Suddenly, the sparrow leaped from his resting spot into the air, flapping his wings in a nearly supersonic state. Hardly anyone would be able to see his small red body in the night sky. Nothing more than a blood-red blur swept

Creative Works… 181 across the street, until it landed on the bench where the man rested. The wood was much more refined than his oak tree, or any tree for that matter. It was sanded, softer, with grooves that made his tiny legs comfortable. The young man hardly noticed the red sparrow beside him. He ran his hand through his black hair, letting it fall just above his eyebrows. It had been months since he got it cut. Now, he would never get the chance to. The thought produced a chill down his spine. As he continued to tap his feet, he turned to see the red sparrow staring at him, his eyes full of curiosity. “Hello there,” the sparrow said softly. “It took a while for you to sense me.” “I’m… sorry.” The young man’s voice was gentle and quiet. Deep, yet sincere. The sparrow hopped closer. He noticed the man staring at the concrete palace. “Peaceful, isn’t it?” The man stared straight at the structure, as though he were sending mental messages to it. He felt called to it, but the concrete palace gave no response. “The hospital?” “Is that what you call it? My, it sounds so different from my language.” The sparrow chuckled. “I meant the sky.”

The man looked up higher, resting his neck on the edge of the bench. “I suppose.” He squirmed in his clothes. They looked damp, as though they were recently completely submerged. A forest was behind them. Trees grew twice the size of the sparrow’s trusty oak for several miles behind the two. The sparrow would know; he’d watched them grow since they were seedlings. As the sparrow looked at the sky, he noticed the young man’s timid expression. To him, he

looked rather disappointed. “What might your name be?” the sparrow said, the silence escaping them. The man hesitated to answer. “Which one?” “Your… most current, I suppose.” The sparrow tilted his neck. The man looked back down, his hair drooping over his eyes. He twiddled his thumbs, as if searching for an answer. “Or, perhaps any one you’d like to tell me,” the sparrow nodded. He hopped to the top wooden panel of the bench, his feet gripping onto the softened birch. “I don’t mind.” “Emmet,” the man whispered. “It’s the most recent.” His legs stopped shaking, and he took a big sigh. “Well, pleasure to meet you, Emmet.” “It always is… it always is.” Silence filled the air once again. It made Emmet stretch and sigh and stretch and sigh. His clothes were starting to stick to him; he noticed every texture and every sense, irritably. The two looked on at the hospital. Lights would flicker here and there, and silhouettes appeared in windows. The occasional patient would look out, not paying a single mind to Emmet or the sparrow. All had agendas of their own, and their own worries. Beings were coming into the world, some were leaving. The sparrow knew it all. So did you. “Is this where you usually go?” Emmet asked. His arms were crossed. He let his hair droop down. It was damp after the fall. The sparrow stretched his wings slightly. “I like to stay in that oak tree over there.” He mo-

Creative Works… 183 tioned his beak in the direction of his favorite branch. “But I do not really go anywhere. Usually, they come to me. I like permanence. Sometimes, I’ll find people wandering, lost, and think ‘Hey, who’s watching them?’ I try to help them find what they’re looking for. There’s a lot that have come and gone through those doors.” He managed a small hop to face the direction of the hospital. “Some of them never leave. Tell me, Emmet, do you like permanence?” Emmet paused. He did not quite know. As many memories filled his past life, the question seemed odd to him. He had moved so many times in his childhood years, from his dad’s work, but he could hardly find anything distinct from any of the apartments, townhomes, or guest houses. Just white walls and flat ceilings. “Uhh,” he started, “nowhere comes to mind.” “Well, ‘No permanence is ours; we are a wave that flows to fit whatever form it finds.’” The sparrow’s voice became more familiar. “Do you feel like a wave, Emmet? Or more like what the wave is searching for?” “Herman Hesse.” Emmet gave a polite smile. “I learned about him not that long ago.” It felt odd talking about the recent past. It made him uneasy, knowing he couldn’t go back to that point of his life anymore. The sparrow’s question was agitating. Permanence? The word cut deep, like a sharp twill needle slowly seeping into his side. “Why do you ask these questions?” A slight irritation slowly rising in his voice. You wonder how long it took to get there. Why was it so gradual? You knew why the sparrow was here, so why does it matter? None of it does. It’s over, you think. You didn’t fall. You jumped. “I ask because I’m curious. You humans feel so many

things, yet find no words to explain it. You just act on it. Where did that get you, Emmet?” Emmet’s focus broke to the bird. His blood-red wings, his grey, spotted beak. “What, do you think I’m weak?” Emmet responded. The sparrow’s body was the size of his hand. How could a being of such innocence be so… adept? So emotionally critical? He pondered this. What does he know? Emmet asked himself, his fist tightening. An itch trickled down his back beneath his tee-shirt. It felt unreachable past the damp cardigan. As he scratched his side, the sparrow’s silence strengthened. It gripped him. It clenched Emmet in its grasp, forcing him to find some sort of response. “Not at all. You reacted in a natural manner. The same anyone would have, at your body’s age. Out of the countless years I have spent observing your kind, asking why they do what they do, how they reach the point of their lives to where they finally decide it is… time. All answers are the same in some way. Silence.” Emmet pondered it. He scratched the side of his temple in a furious, quick motion. “It may be because silence is so deafening, that that’s the only answer your kind can muster. Your silence gives more of an answer than your language. That’s native to humans.” Emmet hunched forward. His boots still felt wet, a slight slush in his socks making his feet murky. “That’s a cliché. Silence may be deafening, but it’s overused,” he scoffed. “How many humans have told you that one?” The thing is, it’s not about the silence. It’s about the fact that he thinks he knows everything about it, as though he is just some transcendent, omnipotent being. “You aren’t as edu-

cated on human knowledge as you think you are.” The sparrow’s head perked up in interest. “We are silent because we don’t know what we feel ourselves. Silence is deafening because no action can make up for it, like…” His words fell short. He couldn’t stand it any longer. “Like when you jumped.” The sparrow finished his thought for him. “I didn’t want to as much as I thought.” Emmet’s nails began to dig into his thighs. He stood up, every breath getting shorter and shorter. He could still feel the fall. The jump. It felt so free. Once you fall, nothing is able to stop you or catch you. That intimacy between you and the earth is intoxicating. Wherever you land, however you land, the last thing you touch is mother nature. You know that. But, it is the falling that feels more natural. You’re letting go. You are counting on her to catch you. You trust her. “But I know I had to.” Emmet stared off at the hos-

pital.

“I like to think that the earth and the sky have a… complicated relationship,” the sparrow continued. “Wherever they meet, life and death stand together at the same moment.” Life and death, Emmet repeated in his head. For years, he debated what it meant to live and die, and what death truly felt like. Ever since his dad died, he always wondered how it felt. Did a flash of light appear, gently overtaking your sight? Was it quiet? Did you hear the trumpets of Gabriel soothingly bellow into your ears, before you were welcomed into some afterlife, contemplated upon by generations of thinkers? Or, was it dark? Was it an abyss of nothingness,

Creative Works… 186 where no matter how many times you tried to open and close your eyes, all you saw was an omniscient black? Did other fallen souls hear your screams? Could you scream? Emmet began to pace back and forth by the streetlight next to the bench. He placed his shoulder on it, feeling the coldness of the steel. The patterned ridges of the pole were uncomfortable, but it was better than sitting next to some all-knowing bird that spoke like a philosopher. It frustrated him; how calm the sparrow’s voice was. “You sound just like my father,” he said to the spar-

row.

His father would always spout quotes from Horace, Aquinas, even Darwin. He had read Einstein’s The World as I See It at least a dozen times. Whenever Emmet got in trouble as a kid, his father would ask him the meanings of such sayings, and question whether it was morally right to do them. As much as he hated those talks, Emmet missed him.

He thought back to seeing his father in the hospital. The doctor said tuberculosis was the prime killer when he himself was a child in the 1940s. It was like a Venus flytrap; the very millisecond that someone was in its grasp, it turned them into a victim. Emmet pictured the flashy, near-supersonic speed of the flytrap. And his father was in it. He was only sixteen back then, holding his father’s cold, thin hand in his. His eyes were tired, his lips the color of a plum. Emmet stared at his father as though he were sinking. It was already too late by that time, Emmet thought. His father had gotten sick only four months prior. “It’s just a cold,” he’d say, playing it off. “I’ll drink some chamomile tea.” He was drinking chamomile tea twice a day.

Creative Works… 187 Emmet couldn’t drink chamomile ever since that day, his father’s boney hands in his. Father couldn’t talk much anymore, or hold food or liquids down. But, with as much strength as it could take for a tuberculosis victim, Father whispered something to him. “Don’t give in to silence,” his father weakly murmured. Emmet shuddered. His father’s body was drifting, slowly becoming a tattered assortment of bones, veins, and tissue. Emmet’s mother swore she could see his skull through his skin. His boney hands felt like frayed rope with rough skin; empty of power or control. Staring into his father’s grey eyes, Emmet squeezed his hand, hoping for some sort of reaction, but nothing. His father’s eyes weren’t focused on him. He’s probably seeing the light, Emmet thought. In minutes, those eyes were no longer staring at his son’s face. They were no longer of the world. Emmet leaned away from the street pole and opened his hand. It was dry. He could still feel his father’s feeble, debilitating hand. Some nights, he’d wake up with his hand stretched out, as though he were still holding onto it. He couldn’t help it. He could still hear his father’s whisper. Silence had been Emmet’s number one enemy ever since. In just a year, his mother shut herself out from the world. She stopped talking to friends, or giving that same graceful smile she was known for. Her love for Emmet felt like mere tolerance. While she dragged herself to work and back, Emmet was drinking, smoking, and never home. He still remembers the fight they had for him not coming home by curfew. “Your father would hate who you’ve become,” she spoke in a soft, stern voice. “And I can’t bear it.”

Creative Works… 188 He stopped listening to her. More so, he couldn’t. Those words sprinted miles and miles in his mind for days on end. The sparrow wriggled its feathers. The fluttering sound broke Emmet’s concentration. “Your mother studied the silence,” the sparrow said, staring forward at the hospital. “Your father knew it.” “Did you guide him?” Emmet said. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette. “He died here.” Your hand returns empty. Oh, you think, I guess they don’t transcend death.

“No, I did not. It was not my duty, but another’s.” Emmet sighed, exasperated, a disappointed look shown on his face. “What will she think?” “Your mother?” “Yeah… Mom.” “You know, I’m not allowed to disclose the living from the passed.” Emmet kicked his soaked boots. All he could think about was what she would think. Disappointed? Maybe. She couldn’t stand me after his death. She might just think, “Good riddance,” “I’m glad,” “He was better off this way.” Was I? The thought ponders in your head, skipping at a leisurely place. It dances for several seconds in real time before the sparrow speaks again. “Would you like to tell me why you did it?”he asked. “I’m sure you already know,” you say. “That does not really matter. Tell me.” If the sparrow could have smiled, he would have been. “The world is better off without me,” you say. “The life of Emmet was... enjoyable for a time. But nothing came of it. Father, dead. Mother, sick and iso-

Creative Works… 189 lated, a shadow of the person she was before. My boss cut me because I was the lowest-performing in my district. What’s the point of living if the only thing you grow to be eager for is death?” Your confession feels weightless, repetitive amidst the cool air in the night. Your body must be sunken by now, probably. It’s safe to assume no one has noticed. “Death is all I was waiting for. It would either come to me, or I would go to it.” “That does not answer my question.” Emmet raised his eyebrows, leaning his back on the lamppost towards the sparrow. The sparrow hopped closer. “You told me why Emmet wanted to die. Not why you wanted to die.” The feeling of insult returned to Emmet’s eyes. He felt as though his heart was beating rapidly. He expected it, but nothing came. He placed his hand on his chest, waiting, but nothing came. Instead, anger filled his voice. “My mother has half the glow in her eyes from when Emmet’s father was alive. My shadow… Emmet’s shadow, was cut into thirds. And he was hanging on for dear death.” Emmet felt hurt in his own voice. His chest felt hot, his voice beginning to rise at the same rate as his temper. “You think you know what humans have to go through? Do you? We have to look into our parents’, our siblings’, our loved ones’ eyes, knowing there will be a last day you see them. Emmet thought his father was going to live forever. But he was taken from him. He was taken from everyone. The only two people who were there for me… for Emmet, were his parents. And when my father died, everything broke. I can feel the cracks in my mother’s spirit. And the cracks in mine, and his friends, and his siblings. And now…” Emmet stopped.

Creative Works… 190 “Now what?” the sparrow asked. His voice never changed a decibel. The same tranquil tone echoed in Emmet’s ears. “My mom breathes, only because she has to. For me.” His rage simmered to an ember. “She’s been dead for the past six years, not feeling an ounce of life since he died.” The question left his tongue without a destination. “She doesn’t love me,” Emmet said to himself. The word ‘love’ felt uncomfortable in his mouth. He hadn’t heard it in so long. That is all there is to that word, Emmet thought. Just speech. No feeling. The sparrow had not changed motion at all. As the wind slowly began to breeze past the two entities, their conversations trailed with it, flowing with time and the infinite paths that connect life with death. For millennia, the sparrow had seen these paths flow. Where a human as you feels the wind, the sparrow sees it. He saw every path: a thin, paper-like line that flowed smoothly past the space it had once stayed before. The hospital produced lines itself, each one passing through its respective windows – lines of all vibrancies, opacities, and lengths. Some were shorter than others, and some told stories that not a single living soul had heard. The sparrow had seen them all. The metrics of which the sparrow could see were indescribable to a common human soul. A human could know their mind, their heart, even one another’s bodies inside and out, but know nothing of their soul. That knowledge is reserved for something not even one who has lived multiple lifetimes can bear witness to. “Are you ready to go?” the sparrow asked. “I didn’t want to die,” you say brokenly. “I know,” the sparrow said.

“Will it happen again?” The sparrow’s slight chuckle returned. “That is for the next you to decide.” A long pause awaited the sparrow’s beak. “Would you like to know something, Emmet?” Your head lifts up, slight tears trailing on your nose bridge. “Jumping was not your death.” You wipe your eyes on your damp cardigan. “You didn’t give in to the silence. The silence has been there for some time. You see, I do not see time the same way humans do. I do not see birth, life, and death. I see life and death interchangeably. Each life intersects at a center of paths without a single terminus. Sometimes, one dies long before their life ends. The moment the first third of your spirit faded, your life came to an end, the second third following soon after. One cannot live with one-third of a spirit… nor half. You have lived many lives before Emmet.”

“When do they end?” you whisper, more so to yourself than anything. “They never do. That’s the beauty of it.” “Beauty is me that I have to relive pain over and over? That I have to be born and experience the same things every single time I open my eyes? This was the first time I died this way.” Your voice slowly cracks as you speak. The pressure feels insurmountable. Soon, the tears begin to show. “Who’s to say it won’t happen again? Who’s to say it won’t be an eternal hell until I’m right back here? You won’t remember me in this same form the next time I come. You will find someone else, and walk them through the same thing, for the millionth time. And I’ll be just another wandering, floating

something.” The breeze stopped. A line danced around Emmet’s body where he stood. The sparrow followed it with his eyes, squinting. Yes, it was thin, with a gray, nearly transparent figure. It flowed toward the hospital. Finally, the sparrow stretched his neck and fluttered his wings once more. He was ready. “Your emotions did not shape you, Emmet,” the sparrow said. “Follow me.” The sparrow flapped his wings and began to fly toward the hospital doors. Your head raises. You see the sky slowly lightening from its deep, blackened blue. The stars are nearly fleeting, with the sun close to follow. In little time, the streetlamps will soon turn off, and the world will continue to pass you by. Soon, the destination will be revealed, and you will have no choice but to follow. But, simplicity does not take you by storm. As a human, you are full of many complexities, contradictions, and contrasts. You know this. As you walk across the empty street to where the sparrow flies, its blood-red wings flapping to a bike pole near the entrance of the hospital, your feet drag. You know that with each step, you are closer to what is to come next. You never truly cared about what happens after life, but more so how it feels. The world is full of many “after’s”, but not much is known about the “currents”. You can’t control what will happen, or how you will react. You just know, with your human experience, it never ends. Neither does life. Neither does death. The sparrow perched on an empty bike rack. “In here,” he motioned to the hospital’s entrance.

Creative Works… 193 “Life, death, and everything in between flourishes. Some enjoy it, others don’t. Regardless, it continues. Each path intersects at some point. But you all continue. Whether it be before your physical death or after, if you continue to worry, you will only cause stress for you the next time it happens.” “Next time?” you ask. “As I said, it intersects at some point.” You ponder this, and wipe the tears from your eyes. “I just want Mother to be okay.” “She will be,” the sparrow said. “She may have ‘died’ years ago, but she still must fulfill the life she has yet to finish. As for you, both have reached their point.” You feel your body getting lighter, as though the weight of every infidelity, every action, every discourse, is leaving you. As you look up, a single star is staring back at you, glinting faintly with little tint. The sky’s twilight is fleeting as quickly as it came. Or at least, that’s how it feels to you. For the sparrow, it is a mere moment tied to many more moments. “Emmet,” the sparrow said. “Yes,” you answer. “Your mother loves you. She knew you died long ago; she knew if she couldn’t help you, you had to help yourself.” “With death?” The sparrow answered with silence. As you look down at the sparrow, you smile, the first true one you have shown in months. You soon begin to dissipate, fading from the world of evolving “after’s,” “currents,” and “before’s.” The star you see fades as well. You can hardly make it amidst the lighten-

Creative Works… 194 ing sky. Your body becomes less of a figure. Gone are the damp cardigan, boots, jeans, and shirt. The cigarettes are not even in your fading memory anymore. You hope that you remember that bench and the sparrow. Your eyes close, and as you feel lifted, weightless, and nearly ethereal, you feel beautiful. You did not give into the silence. You owned it. You became it. Your father would be loving – Your mother, far more. Finally, you fade. “It has been a long time coming,” you give one final thought. The sparrow looked where Emmet stood in front of him, now a line forming to the paths he had seen time and time again. Only this time, much shorter and much closer. He smiled as much as he could with his beak, honoring the one who was once called Emmet. The hospital doors opened as the sun began to show its face. A middle-aged man walks through, pushing his wife in a wheelchair. They both look tired, yet joyful. The man scratched his scruffy beard, blinking his eyes crustily. The wife looked down at her arms. She was holding a newborn child. The newborn looked at the sparrow, its eyes glowing.

by N.H. Steed Once upon a time, in a strange faraway land, a little girl named Autumn was walking through an enchanted wood, trying to find her way home. The wood was very peculiar indeed: its trees could whisper, its rivers could sing, and its creatures could speak. Autumn had been wandering through the woods for a long time, and decided to sit down beside a tree to rest, when suddenly, high above her, she saw a frightful sight. A giant green spider, spinning its silver thread, was dropping down towards her. “Hello, dear child,” said the spider, alighting on the ground next to her. “What is a pretty little thing like you doing alone in the wood?” Autumn didn’t like the way the spider stared at her with all eight of its eyes, so she decided not to answer. The spider went on: “Little girls shouldn’t be alone in the wood. There are too many hungry beasts that will try and eat you up. If you come with me, I’ll show you the way home again. Is that not where you’re trying to go, home?” Autumn shrank back from the spider, who was now leaning over her. “Yes,” replied Autumn. “I am trying to find my way home. However, I don’t think I should go with you.” The spider was very beautiful with all its bright green colors, but Autumn didn’t like the idea of trusting spiders, even if they were pretty. Hearing Autumn’s words, an angry frown twisted over the spider’s face, but it quickly tried to smile again. “You don’t have to come with me very far. Just step onto my web, and I’ll hoist you up high into the trees. From up there, you can spot your village in the distance and learn