Forum Thread

Trapped in the valley of ashes, the boy dreamed of technicolor birds, for his wings once glowed under the sunlight in a dozen colors before settling lame besides him on the earth...

Ashes ashes, we all fall down!”

Just as abruptly as the song started, it came to an end. A quartet of energetic youngsters collapsed into the summer dust, kicking up a small cloud. Their wings went limp as they practiced the age old dramatic art of “playing dead.” There was a chorus of exasperated sighs and groans from the other adults in the market following this display and two browbeaten parents stepped forward to extricate their young. Slightly out of earshot, one of the rambunctious youngsters received a firm scolding. He didn’t catch the exact wording, but judging by how the interaction ended quickly — and the hidden glances between parents - the laughing matter was excused for now. Still he didn’t miss how quickly the voices lowered, how glances became more furtive. There are risks to speaking too loudly in public.

A moment of silence passed, before the young boy with the dark wings—still engrossed in his drawing—finally let out a sigh and tapped his pencil against the paper in thought. His sketch was meticulous, the stoic posture of the guard outlined clearly, a mock version of the official style for the upcoming poster. His fingers, smudged with ink, worked quickly across the parchment, adding a few final details to the rough face. No features that he would call his own, there wasn’t the slender jaw characteristic of the boy’s species, or the graceful curves that would hint at wings. This guard, like many others in his squad — and the empire as a whole — was human. That was the golden standard, the Golden Ratio - the ideal paragon upon which all ideals were rested. Anything other than that was considered ‘subpar’ like a misstroke with a quill upon the earth that would never be erased.

The sketch was taking shape. He could finish by sundown and deliver it by nightfall. Still he couldn’t help but find the entire process particularly onerous, not just in time spent but in terms of the entire artistic process. Carved entirely out of charcoal monochrome, a tough stern material, the slate-faced complexion was alien in its severity. The boy only knew the swirling technicolor dress of his home-region, people clad in so many colors like a flock of migrating birds.

The kingdom on the other hand dressed in pale and lifeless colors, slate grey, navy blue accents, flint, and silver -- to the boy, they bled into one another until it was one body, one face, one mind moving in a stagnant tide.

The boy stopped, cast a glance around the market, and then pulled something from the depths of his coat. This he clung to his breast fervently, and his gaze became more furtive. Once more he checked that everyone around him was indeed occupied with their own matters, he flipped over page by page until he came to one that was blank. He wasted no time; pulling out his pen, the pen flitted with fervor. An image was imprinted there -- pasted from a burned book --captured an essence of the past; elegant script above titled the page and laid bare the risk of possessing it.

The possession of art is like the revelation of an ancient truth after a century of lies. That truth creates fear for art has the power to become a reckoning.
Knowledge is power. Power is freedom. Freedom is a pure ideal.
Albrecht Dürer

The entry ended there. The author of this art was of course, long dead. The boy read it four more times as he committed the art to memory before shutting the book. His finger absently traced over the cover absently as his heart raced.

Power. Knowledge. Freedom. Strong words. Forbidden words.

The boy knew these were all things which could be considered a capital punishment. His notebook didn’t just contain studies of avian anatomy, but lists, quotes, messages, names of artists banned politically for “controversial messages.” If this didn’t get him hanged, it would at least be grounds for arrest.
The deprivation of knowledge is a great weapon after all. You can’t have a mousetrap without cheese, nor a garden without an apple to tempt one to sin.

“Do you wish you were strong, like them?” He could almost hear his mother’s cautious voice in his ear. “You must yearn for the power they can wield with abandon, the power to decide, to govern, to weave fates on a whim.”

The number of people in the market was thinning out - and less people meant less people to hide behind. The toils of the day evaporated into the sunset like morning mist. The boy glanced around himself quickly before he departed with haste. Once he was a good distance away from the market, his wings unfurled, carrying him home on a cool night wind. As he stared at the ground, there was suddenly an immense surge of pity in his heart for all the empire’s soldiers who would never once experience the embrace of the sky. They were cursed, like so many cattle, to trod endlessly upon the earth, assaulted endlessly by waves of the dust they trod on until their untimely end.

Colors and dreams are fleeting things, there and gone quicker than a butterfly’s wing. For one inexperienced with their ebb and flow, it may appear dazzling and uncoordinated. Those in power hid their cruelty behind veiled smiles and excuses of power, claiming their rule and ideologies would last forever. The presence of color and free expression was an obstruction, and for that, it was stifled, chased, hunted. But for those who have learned to dance with the rhythm of their shifting hues and whispers, there is a quiet beauty in their impermanence, like a sunset that fades just as you reach the horizon.

It would be the last of the sunsets he would see; that very night, his house received one of many dreaded knocks on the door. The door opened to cold drafts and a bitter rain, rain shining like teardrops; how he longed to string them together into jewels upon his leash as the soldier led him away — a lamb to slaughter. The words fell coldly upon the air, freezing it: “Your son has been selected for the royal army. He is to come immediately to the square; his majesty recognizes his art hides a cunning mind. Glory be to the godking.” Perhaps the heavens were weeping for him, for yet another bird had been lost to the grounds.

After being separated from his people for 47 winters and 48 springs, the boy had long forgotten the taste of wind on his wings, the way color overwhelmed yet uplifted his soul, like colors on the wind. His surroundings were muted into monochrome puddles.

And yet deep in the recesses of his mind, there still lingered the image of a frowning winged woman, clad in garlands, and staring mournfully into the harbor docks, accompanied by the words: freedom is a pure ideal.