First listen

​After the fire and the smoke, I started treading on thin ice and through it, I could see all the pain in the world. Like a detective, I started connecting dots and a fist, clenched around my heart kept closing tighter and tighter.

The small crabs, shrimps and other marine animals, my summer holiday friends, were gone from their rocks forever. I couldn’t believe it. Was the future I imagined all my life a lie?

With a heavy heart I went around, searching, digging, excavating stories that I could cling on to. A part of me refused to believe my destiny was to watch the beautiful colours of this world fade away, not because I couldn’t see them anymore, but because they wouldn’t be there.
​
Then one day, I met a very old and grumpy cockatiel who every night flew in panic, screaming around the house. His human told me he was prone to night terrors and was old and senile. That bird did not like me at all, he was scared, and he hissed but I thought he was trying to tell us something. After careful inspection, I found mice droppings around his cage – the poor bird was being harassed by them every night! A major cleaning event and mice prevention strategy made him so happy he climbed my arm and sang in my ear. He knew I understood him and changed his life for the best.
 
Today I Will Remember
that as long as I live, I must continue to listen, to think for myself and act for others. And in that space, a constant negotiation like the sustained flight of birds, I find hope.
 
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
(Emily Dickinson, "'Hope' is the thing with feathers - (314)")

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