Inspired by Paul Laurence Dunbar's poem, “Sympathy," Breezy Van Lit composed You Are a Bird as a Christian allegory exploring your spirit’s desire to be free.
This inspirational novella is written in 2nd person point of view and present tense to pull readers into the peculiar world of the protagonist bird—You.
I think readers (especially if they are writers) will enjoy the way that redemption is represented through the struggles of a caged bird. This story is especially relevant in a time in which so many individuals are trapped in addiction, cultural snares, and even technology. The book's logline -- You are a bird in a cage who wonders if you were created to do more than cling to a perch and watch others live -- unfortunately, relates to the status of many humans living without God.
Whirling stars clicking into one another over streams of satin ribbon. That’s how you would describe the sounds you hear.
However much you try to ignore it, you cannot.
You are a musical being, constructed with a connection to rhythms and notes that communicate more clearly than words, more powerfully than pleasure or pain.
Man cranks a handle, which spins a wheel; taps his fingers on buttons pressing into wood. And the melody flows.
Kaz says the instrument is called a hurdy-gurdy. You question whether Kaz is being serious. Hurdy-gurdy? Humans are strange creatures, but that just sounds absurd.
The music the hurdy-gurdy produces is not absurd. It makes you wonder if Man is a god.
Eyes closed, breathing through his nose, Man’s hand cycles and fingers dance. And from his machine, those celestial sparks ascend and descend a spiral tower in your mind.
The melody torments you. Not because it is harsh or hideous, but because it is arresting in its beauty. The notes fly. And that makes you sense that you should fly. That you must fly.
But that is not possible.
Wood surrounds you.
The curving bars of your cage and the straight perch to which you cling. The creaky floorboards below Man’s foot, which he taps to the crescendoing tempo of his music, and above which Kaz’s tail sways. The wood of the mantle and the walls composing the room enclosing your cage. The ceiling, in thick, impenetrable beams. The wooden desk and chair. Chessboard and its pieces, pedestal, and stool. Bookshelf filled with books filled with paper. Easel and the wood sheet it displays—blank now, but soon to be covered with paint and cut into pieces. And as the pieces separate, the dust that falls from the saw blade—wood.
Dead wood.
Kaz claims there is living wood outside of this room, and lots of it. He says the image you see through the window on the rock is a twig compared to the forest of living wood he has roamed—which is not, in fact, far from where you perch.
The closest thing to living wood in your presence is the magic box Man twists and taps, making it breathe its wordless song of unattainable hope.
You sink so low your beak bumps into your chest. When you lift it, you discover within its grasp a plucked feather.