On the edge of a forest lived a man alone.
But he didn’t feel alone.
Every morning, he woke early to listen to a song,
a joyful song announcing the return of spring.
That song came from a cage
hanging beside the window.
Inside lived a small bird.
It wasn’t born in the cage: it had been found wounded,
and the man had cared for it gently, never asking for anything.
He fed it, spoke to it, they kept each other company.
Each morning, by an unspoken, unwritten pact,
he opened the cage: “Go,” he seemed to say with his eyes. “Come back whenever you want.”
And the bird always came back.
Because that cage wasn’t a prison,
it was a refuge,
the place where the heart could return.
Until one day, a blackbird arrived.
Majestic, shiny, proud.
He landed on a branch near the open cage and said:
“Why do you keep coming back? The sky is yours. True freedom doesn’t return.
Come fly with me, I’ll show you new horizons.”
Moved by these words, the bird began to think.
To long not only to fly… but to never return.
So, one day, while the man waited by the window,
the bird looked into his eyes.
Then it flew away, without looking back.
The man stood still, hand still outstretched.
But he didn’t close the cage.
Each evening he left it open, and each night he hoped.
Because that bird wasn’t just company.
It was the voice of the home.
The last bond with life.
The one who listened to whispered thoughts.
The hope that something might still return.
And so, day after day,
the man kept changing the water, leaving fresh crumbs,
looking out, waiting.
Sometimes he thought he heard it,
other times he dreamed of seeing it return.
And he woke up with a broken heart.
Meanwhile, the blackbird led the small bird to the highest peaks,
speaking of the thrill of the sky,
of wild life,
of the wind that never questions where it goes.
For a while, the small bird felt truly free.
But there was a shadow inside him.
Sometimes he turned his head, afraid the man would appear among the trees,
with a net in hand, ready to bring him back.
But that never happened.
Then came the days of rain.
Of cold. Of exhaustion.
He discovered that dreamed freedom was not the same as lived freedom.
That the wind sometimes scratches.
That the sky offers no shelter.
That being free without protection is just another kind of cage.
One day, hungry and worn out, he found the house at the forest’s edge again.
He saw the cage still open.
He entered, not as a prisoner, but as a traveler returning.
And he sang.
A new song. Gentle, thoughtful, free.
As if even behind bars, there was no constraint.
But inside, the water was stagnant.
The crumbs were dry. The man was no longer there.
Perhaps he had left. Perhaps he hadn’t made it through the wait.
Then, the bird wondered:
“And what if he’s no longer here… because of me?”
Since that day, he sings every evening.
With a different voice.
A poignant and sorrowful note has found its way into his song.
A sound no one forgets: the song of the nightingale.