2/7/2024

2/7/2024, Tuesday

9:10 p.m.

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the trees – they cut them down yesterday. i woke up to the sound of so, so many birds chirping incessantly today morning. they cried out for hours and hours, as though mourning a loss. i came outside to see what happened. some ten, fifteen birds were perched on the compound wall. my mum said they'd been there for over an hour by then. i looked at the emptiness beyond the few trees that remained – i could see an office in the distance, and more buildings. to the right, a high rise apartment was being constructed. i could see the distant sky, yet somehow it did not comfort my heart as it usually would; it felt desolate, hollow. and i realized why those birds cried out so terribly; where timber had been chopped down to build houses for others elsewhere, here, a family had lost its home. there was a mother, staring at her broken, empty nest, grieving her babies. and there were so many such birds, all crying their little hearts out.

i recalled a superstition from the villagers at my hometown. they said that horrible luck always befell a man in the lumber business. perhaps I wouldn't have believed that hogwash on any other day. but tonight, as i am met with stark emptiness, in place of the lilting chirp of an Indian nightjar and so, so many others, i think their words may have had some merit to them.