Where Did You Sleep Last Night?
The ghastly silence of the morning was rattled by the chirping of sparrows, filling the fresh misty atmosphere of the neighbourhood. The sun, still eager to reveal its radiant face, peeped bit by bit over the horizon. A huge Angsana tree, old and sturdy as time itself provided a night like shadow across Haley's room. Before long, the ringing alarm clock signaled the time for Haley to awake from her deep sleep.
She stretched herself like a lazy cat and muted the clock on her bedside table. Still very much in a daze, she stood up with eyes closed and walked toward the window to draw her curtains and breathe in the fresh new morning.
Haley stood rooted by the window on the second floor almost like a ritual, as she watched the cars zoom by the little street and the morning sparrows flying out of their little homes.
If you were as observant as she was, you could just make out those dark brown nests, looking like flower pots perched on the sturdy branches of the Angsana. Moving your gaze a little, it wasn't too difficult to spot another, and yet another nest. What cosy little homes Haley thought as she longed to be a bird perhaps, flying free and fast in her next life.
As the day wore on and Haley was busy at school, her mother was stopped in her tracks as she was performing her household chores. The monstrous heavy ramblings of powerful machinery filled the air. They sounded like chainsaws. "Finally, they've come to prune the trees", she thought.
The foreign workers laboured on those thick branches like a barber would a disheveled caveman. And soon after, the huge Angsana looked almost stripped and bare, less for a couple of smaller branches, which breathed the only form of life left in that listless tree.
That evening, as Haley was about to close her windows, she noticed something rather peculiar. She could somehow look straight through into her opposite neighbours' home. "Ah, they have trimmed the trees", she mumbled to herself.
Sadly, never did anyone spare a thought for those sparrows who once homed on that huge old tree, sheltering them from the night monsoon, and cold howling winds. Surely, the sparrows could not have constructed another nest to sleep in, within that measly few hours.
I wonder what would it have felt like, when they came home that evening to see their homes destroyed and lost? Where could these innocent sparrows sleep that night? Somewhere out there, those poor little souls are now wondering...aimless...and homeless.
