SPARROW AND SHOEMAKER

by John Kratman

Rain and wind battered the sparrow, but the downpour could not quench the many fires that burned in the city below him. The shattered colors of trees and broken towers stood out in the flashing lightning. On occasion, the clouds and smoke parted and a great comet with a fiery tail bathed the ruined city with an eerie light. Screams of the dying gave a monstrous voice to the night, punctuated by the howls of the dogs that roamed the streets, feasting.

An excited yell rose above the cacophony of destruction and a luckily cast stone clipped the sparrow's side. He fell fluttering to a concrete ledge bounded by leering gargoyles. Torrents of water and wind threatened to wash the little bird away. He struggled toward an open window and his wounded wing scraped painfully against the rough concrete.

The interior of a small apartment loomed before him, framed by a worn window and lit by a lone candle set on the top of a useless electric stove. The sparrow dragged himself inside, shook the water from his feathers, and pecked carefully at his wounded wing.

Within, an old man sat at a small table with a bottle before him, his face in his hands.  Around the tiny apartment, in every nook and cranny, lay pairs of shoes. A workbench sat beyond the kitchen, barely discernable in the poor candlelight. The room smelled of death.

The sparrow moved into the shadows as quietly as he was able. After a time, the old man raised his head from his hands and took a long drink. Tears streamed down his face, running as a canyon river through the deep lines that marked it. He sighed and placed his head on the table, cradling it in his thin arms. After a time, his breathing became more regular and he knocked his bottle to the floor, not stirring from his fitful sleep.

"Hello, young one." A voice, tired and primal, chirped to the sparrow out of the shadows. It was a voice that seemed to carry the weight of the world.

The bird jumped backward and balanced precariously on the edge of the windowsill. Frantically beating his good wing, he regained his footing.

"Who said that?" he asked.

"I did." A flash of lightning lit the room and the sparrow saw a birdcage, old and tarnished, hanging from a hook beside the window.

Shrunken and sickly upon a perch, his feathers oily and sparse, sat what looked to be the oldest sparrow in the world. Older than the trees, older than the hills, he still bore an air both regal and proud. Upon his wizened head there was a small patch of yellow that tapered to a faded crest of white.

"Tell me, my little egg," he asked, eyes bright and gleaming, "Does Wormwood still burn in the heavens? Is the water still bitter?"
"I came only for shelter from the storm, to wait for the spring."

"There will be no end to this storm, no more spring. No more eggs and sweet rain, there will be no more delicious seeds to eat in the morning sunshine. It is Judgement day, little egg."

"Surely this will pass and the sun will shine. We'll build nests and call for our mates from the boughs of sun-dappled trees." The young sparrow edged closer to the cage, peering in at the elder. He stumbled and jarred his wing as an explosion ten blocks away rocked the building. In the flare of light he saw that the little door to the cage stood ajar. "Your cage is open! Come, let us flee, while there is still time."

"There is no more time, little egg." The ancient bird gasped a ragged note, beautiful and sad. "The sound of the sixth angel's trumpet still echoes from the rubble and the seventh angel's horn shall signal the destruction of the world. The weight of the years bears me down and fogs my mind, yet still I see the signs.  There will be an end to our suffering." He indicated the old man with a toss of his head. On cue, the cobbler mumbled into his outstretched arms and thrashed in his sleep. A look akin to both terror and longing marked his face.

"I have left him before," said the elder sparrow. "He does not try to keep me. But over the long years I have always returned to him. My life is bound to his."

"But you are a bird! We are bound only to the air. How is it that you say you are bound when your cage is open?" The pain in the young sparrow's wing and side had reached a crescendo and his heart beat painfully in his tiny chest. His eyes were heavy and he settled down on his belly.

"It seems that neither of us will fly today, young one. Bide away the last moments of the world with me. Let me tell you a story of my youth, long, long ago."

Shock began to work its way through the younger sparrow and coldness spread through his ruined wing. "Aye, old bird, tell me. I-- I think I'll stay here a while, until I get my strength back."

The passage of years had hardened the eldest sparrow, but still he felt pity for the dying bird, barely older than a fledgling. "Long ago, young one, long, long, ago, I lived a life that birds of this age could not dream of. From one end of the world to the other stretched the forests, dotted only here and there with villages of men. I sang and I mated, I ate and I flew, and as much as any living thing, I enjoyed my time in the sun.

"But one day I happened on a tiny shop in one of the human villages where an old man made sandals to protect human feet against the hard ground.

"Noticing me when he looked up from his labors, the sandal maker left a crust of bread for me on his windowsill. Wary at first, I ate it up, happy to get an easy meal. In those days I was carefree and lazy; the prospect of freedom from the endless search for food tempted me. I stopped by the same house the next day to see if the old sandal maker had left any more bread. It became a daily ritual between us. After a while, I became so bold that I took food directly from his hand while I sat on his shoulder.

"It came to pass one day that, as I ate the bread from his shoulders, he grabbed me by the feet and put me into a cage, much like this one.

'You'll fetch a fine price at market, little bird,' he said, sucking at the finger I had cut pecking him.

"Long was the journey. Tied to the side of an oxcart, we shook and rattled our way along the road to an immense village, larger and more teeming with life than any I had ever seen.

"My jailer stood me on a little table in the market square, next to his many pairs of shoes. The afternoon was hot and steamy and sales were not everything he had hoped. No one paid much attention to me, most being concerned with the haggling over a pair of sandals and whether or not it might rain. The sandal maker wished to make a good start in the new village and he spoke respectfully to all he met, especially the village elders and rabbis. But to the refuse that walked the streets he was vicious and cruel, spitting on them and shouting curses at their backs.

"Not resigned to my fate, I sank into a dark gloom and refused any of the sandal maker's attempts to get me to sing. I waited for a chance to regain my freedom.

"At midday a contingent of soldiers whipped, cursed, and beat a group of men dragging huge wooden crosses through the dust. One of them, a thin man with many cuts on his brow and bruises all over his body, sought to stop and rest before the sandal maker's table of wares.

"He gave me a little smile and a wink, looking at me as surely as you are doing so now.  'Hello, little bird,' he said, and I felt a great sadness to see his suffering, even to the point of forgetting my own plight.

"The sandal maker came out from behind his table and cursed him, 'Move along thief! Move, murderer! Be gone, you scare away my business! Go on! Quicker!' and he struck the man a blow that staggered him and made him fall to one knee under his burden. The other merchants around him grinned and added their voices to his, until the bleeding and ragged man shambled away from them.

"The poor man turned back just as the sandal maker picked up my cage to move it out of the sun. He pointed at the sandal maker and said in a voice better suited to praise than curse, 'I go, Ahaserus, but you shall wait until the end of days for my return.' There was power in his voice and the sandal maker's hands trembled as he set my cage in the shade.

"Many of the merchants drew away from the sandal maker because the condemned man knew and spoke his name. But Ahaserus claimed to have never before seen the man. After a few hours, the merchants once more spoke to the sandal maker as a comrade and troubled him no more.

I heard screams of pain, ghastly screams like the one you hear right now from the streets, coming from over the hill. A finch that sheltered against the hot afternoon sun in a tree near my cage told me that they nailed the condemned men to their crosses and left them to die and be eaten by vultures.

"The sandal maker kept me in that cage for many years and it was through me at first, I think, that he began to understand. I did not age, though the years flew by us. The people of his village grew old and died around him, first the eldest, then his own children and their children as well, until no one could say for certain just how ancient he was.

"At last he abandoned his home, fearful for his safety. On a gray and overcast day, he brought my cage out into the garden of his cottage and opened the tiny door.

'Fly away, bird, and forgive a stupid old man. I go to pay my penance until the King of Kings returns.' He set his feet upon the road and walked into the gray morning. I watched until he was out of sight then flew into the sky, gloriously free once more.

"The world was much different. Men and their homes lay thick in the hills and woods, yet still there was spring and eggs and the joy of the wind beneath my wings.

"Lifetimes passed and I had many chicks before I grew weary of watching my loved ones succumb to old age. I sought after the sandal maker for many years before I found him. He sat before a little shop, his old face frozen in time. He no longer made sandals. He made shoes.

He had kept the cage he had imprisoned me in for so long and I flew into it when he brought it out. He never again latched the door. It was no accident; our fates are bound together until He returns to grant us peace."

#

The old sparrow finished speaking before he saw that the younger sparrow was dead. He looked sadly out the open window into the smoke and the crackling lightning. "Perhaps it is for the best," he sang mournfully. "Very sad to be young and have no future."

Hours passed. The sparrow heard in the distance the tremulous note of a trumpet, hesitant, then rising in clarity. Dawn was breaking with none of the sounds of life that normally accompanied it. The trumpet drowned out all else. The sun's rays once more fell upon the city.

Light crept through the smoke and clouds to form a perfect pool of brilliance around the sleeping old cobbler. The sparrow heard footsteps on the stairs outside the ruined apartment building and he took his eyes from the body of the young sparrow and set them upon the single door.

The doorknob turned with a squeak and a young man with dark skin, hair, and eyes walked through it. The trumpet's call rose with each of his steps. He regarded the little sparrow with a kind smile and a cocked head. He put his hand upon the sleeping shoemaker's shoulder and the old man awoke with a start. He looked up into the younger man's eyes.

"Forgive? Lord? Forgive me?" he asked. He put his left hand over the one on his right shoulder.

"Yes, Ahaserus. Come, my son. Come home now."

He helped the shoemaker to stand and guided him to the door, stopping at the threshold. He left him standing in the doorway and came back into the room, crossing it in three easy strides. 

"Hello again, little bird. Forgive me for forgetting you and for the punishment you did not deserve." Vitality seemed to pour into the elder sparrow with each of his words, until he was filled with a song that burst forth of its own accord. The sparse feathers glowed bright and young and his crest of yellow and white seemed once again to be alive in its brilliance.

"Ah, but what's this, eh? Your young friend here is sleeping. Wake up little one," he said, reaching out and stroking the body of the younger sparrow. "There is something I want to show you."

The no-longer-old sparrow pushed the door of his cage aside and flew up to the windowsill.  The young sparrow stood and fluttered his now perfect wings.

The sound of the trumpet faded, leaving only the utter quiet of the lifeless streets and the steady drip of water from the roof. The sun, unseen for so many days, hit the now fresh and perfect earth, unstained by any blemish. Brilliant and warm sunshine blanketed the land and green things grew rapidly from the soil. An insect buzzed across the windowsill and somewhere a mockingbird squawked.

"The jackals are gone from the earth, now and forever," said the dark man as he turned back toward the door.  "Go and seek your mates; go and eat seeds in the sunshine.  Sing and love and nevermore fear the hand of man."

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