...And the Birds Would Have Sung a Requiem for Youth

Today I saw a child chasing a bird
with a small, thick branch clenched in his fist.
The game, it seemed, was to pluck the very life
from the bird
rather than a single feather.

Suppose this boy won his game.
Imagine he swung with the greatest force
a child of his stature could,
and he struck the bird, rendering it lifeless
or better yet, leaving it hanging by a thread over the endless void,
pupils growing wider, frantically searching for safety
as synapses fail to complete the broadcast of S.O.S. to its wings and legs.

Would this child,
this boy,
have a moment of clarity,
a realization,
that he is not in possession of his own fate;
that the world is gnashing against his very existence like dirty teeth,
just waiting to satisfy a hunger for chaos at any moment
or would he see himself as a god;
capable of picking at the seams of that
which shrouds the mystery of life?

...But he missed
and continued to do so.
Never once did he come close.
In time
he will
forget this day,
this failure,
replace the memory of losing a nihilistic game of his own design,
with the joys of winning,
playing by the rules laid out by generations before him.
He will grow into part of our symbiotic stream.
He will have purpose.
He will consume.
He will be happy.
He will be happy.
He will be happy.