An Uneasy Truce

The dense forest swallowed me. The blanket of the tree canopy above blocked even the smallest sliver of light from the full moon. The dark, damp soil pounding beneath my poorly clad feet consumed my legs and feet so much, that I feared I might forever become a part of the forest. The battle between man and nature would continue in another de-evolution from body to dirt.

The cage’s weight tilted me to one side, driving one leg deeper into the organic soup beneath me. The knitted blanket covering the cage began to stick to the forest floor. The blanket fell away from the cage, revealing to the scarlet macaw the black night of the home he only knew as a hatchling. A scratching sound broke the forest’s silence as the macaw shook its feathers and preened like a nervous boy returning home to his mother. The shyness gave way to a guttural, murderous cry. This was the cry of an aggrieved heart that had found its place to heal.

The red plumage of the macaw’s chest sparked and became aflame with a brilliant light. The electric sparks spread behind the head, down the neck, and the luminescence of the blue wing feathers became an ocean of reflective crystal. The remaining lime green and yellow feathers highlighted and deepened everything into a piercing kaleidoscopic lantern. The tropic rainbow of light burned through the darkness. The aurora uncovered the clearing in the distance.

There was a deep gouge in the ground that continued far beyond the human eye’s reach. I imagined that a colossal bird talon pierced the flesh of the earth and scraped backward, collapsing and cracking every tree in its path. Dead trees piled upon each other in the trench like stiff corpses in a mass grave. Both I and Mother Nature mourned the loss of familiar things that were once alive; however, my father’s resting place had not survived the destruction as well as the trees had.

My father was the last man to climb and scale the tops of the trees to survey the area as a new site to clear for the logging company. Papá had tried to work in other fields, but no other work paid as well as the logging company. He was prideful his knowledge of the region had helped to bring business and prosperity to his remote corner of Nicaragua. With each small plot my father cleared, he would make enough money for a few weeks. Paco knew, however, that the legacy of his father, and maybe his own legacy, too, was one of theft. Only now it was too late to return the earthly riches plundered without reprisal.

As he had thousands of times, my father checked his climbing harness and ropes for any weaknesses. He then wrapped his orange rope around the tree. With his rope securely hugging the tree, he slowly began to caterpillar his way up. Methodically sawing away branches blocking his ascent, the foggy top came closer and closer into view. The spike of his shoes failed to set in the tree bark, and his fall began.

The slippery wood of the palm tree only accelerated his fall to a run. His feet scraped against the bark with such speed that sparks spit from his feet. Not even the harness attached to the tree could fight against the gravity hurling him closer to the ground. He had no hope that he might escape the quickly approaching face of death. His falling body gathered speed as there were no branches below him to slow his fall. His landing shook the ground.

His fragile human body split in two as Papá and the Earth joined as one. His body crated far beneath the soil; his open mouth filled every space of his body with the components of the forest floor. The force of his skull pushing against the tons of soil giving way made his eyes protrude. In his last conscious act, he fought against the immense pull to lift his limp, boneless hand through to the surface. As the dead hand twitched, it gently tossed an object on to a nearby leaf.

The other workers, seeing that nothing could be done to help their fallen comrade, rushed to see what he had discarded. Offset by the deep jungle green of its resting place, the mass appeared to be a red pebble. One of the workers reached to touch the rock, only to find that it was not abrasive to his fingers, but rather the surface was soft and plush, allowing his fingers to glide their way seamlessly across its surface. Then, the worker’s soil-dyed hands began to rise and fall with the creature’s breathing.

Days after unearthing and reburying my father, the habitual line of community members and family came to pay their respects to the pieces of the man my father once was. There was no body to present publicly, so an altar and a photo were put in its place. Men dressed in crisp, white, button-up shirts with white pants and blue silk bandanas secured around their necks. The tops of heads were awash with straw sombreros. Women adorned themselves in bright, pastel dresses. The clothing of the mourners gave such light to the proceedings that no electric light was needed.

Guests fanned themselves with handkerchiefs and hats to fight against the heat created by lively conversation and dance. It was during one of these moments of rest that a small, wrinkled man shuffled his way toward me with the determination and speed of a tortoise. I thought for a moment that one of the altar adornments had come to life. Perhaps, in a moment of celestial confusion, this spirit did not know whom to guide into the great beyond. People had always noted the twin-like similarity my father and I shared.

I could see at a distance that his gnarled hands cradled something. He approached me with the sense of gentleness and reverence reserved for a confessional. His eyes firmly fixated on what was in his hand. Maybe his hand would be like all the others before it, open to grasp an empty hand and to make his mouth dispense the necessary weighty words of grief shared and spoken by many since the beginning of humankind.

The old man and I stood face-to- face. He did not extend one of his hands to shake mine, and once I saw the rosy-pink creature in his hand I understood why. Curled in his palm was the bright red form of a nascent scarlet macaw. The erratic fledging of the baby bird in the old man’s hands was like an arrhythmic heart. Jumping and jerking in one instant, to at once being so still as if to be asleep. I stared at the unmoved eyes of the old man, and I began to open my mouth to express my disbelief when the man spoke in a hush so low as to communicate with my father in his grave. “Your father saved this for you. He saved it for us all.” With those few words, the old man set the bird into my hands, turned, and once again was absorbed into the crowd of visitors.

Time slowed. The baby bird nesting in my hand seemed to me an illusion until the tiny beak began to probe and dig into its surroundings. The bird struggled to force open his beak to bite the presumed predator holding him. Much to my luck, he was too small to have the forceful bite he would grow into within the next few months. Was I this bird’s caregiver now? What did the mysterious man mean when he said that my father had saved it “for us all”? What could be so important about this baby bird?

Individual mourners began to break from the flock, and each headed for their respective resting areas. Tomorrow they would congregate once again to mourn the loss, and on the third day, an almost empty box would be lowered into the earth for the burial. It was, however, the very beginning of a journey for me. That night I slept in my bed knowing that, only feet from me, a baby scarlet macaw nested atop a mound of my clothes.

The rose-colored skin sprouted a grey coat over the first few weeks. Streaks of the blue, red, and green appeared in an artistic prelude to the vibrancy of the final feathery covering. Intermittent croaks alluded to the powerful and deep screeches that would one day fill the air. A gentle, careful grasp of a small nut as a tiny creature betrayed the bone-crushing bite that could break a shell and even skin in the months to come. In that time, as well, the feather coat would soften and grow. The strength and vocal force of the bird would become more powerful. His existence would become more valuable to Paco by the day.

All the townspeople talked about Paco’s beautiful bird. Yes, in the past few weeks the bird’s cries had kept a few people from sleep. Most, however, listened to the cries as they might attend to a call from the past. A reminder that these birds had ruled the skies before man or woman had set foot upon the Earth. A reminder that their land and home had once been a verdant paradise; a paradise that man and bird once shared harmoniously.

To some, these calls were a battle cry. A battle to show that, for as much as these beasts of the sky were meant to be dominated by man, they would not gently allow their cries to be muted by the grinding and whirling of man-made beasts. They would continue to soar from tree to tree in an ever-quickening escape attempt from these all-consuming, insatiable monsters. No one was certain of who might be victorious in the battle; however, all were certain Mother Nature would make the final decision.

In the darkness, which conceals but does not erase one’s shame, Paco found himself standing in the clearing awaiting the arrival of his riches. Riches at the expense of another living thing, but riches that would feed him and his family for months. Maybe, they might be able to sleep on something more comfortable than mattresses stuffed with straw. Maybe, his mother would enjoy the luxury of wearing a fine bracelet sparkling with stones and gems. That would make her shine brilliantly enough to overcome her dark sadness. At the very least, selling the Macaw would bring economic peace to the family after the loss of its principal breadwinner.

Great pillars of rising black smoke formed in the distance. A crunching and grinding moved the ground. The remaining green and healthy trees surrounding Paco bent themselves and snapped in two. Crack. Crunch. Bend. Snap. Crack. Crunch. Bend. Snap. Crack. A terrible rhythm accompanied the destruction. The methodical steps of an advancing beast. Paco unclasped the cage door and readied himself to run.