Spring 2007

Thank you Topios for the idea of using bird skulls and gears... it really got me thinking.

This is all acrylic, the background is a watered-down wash in drippy layers and the foreground was done in layers of solid color for the nice graphic effect.

Painted in 4 and a half days. *dies*

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An old woman caught a bird in a trap and planned to have it for dinner. The bird, horrified at the idea of being plunged into a boiling pot, pleaded to her.

“Grandmother, have pity! My life is incomplete! Would you kill a bird before it has known the sweetness of love?”

“Love?” The old woman grinned toothily. “Tragic thing,” she mocked. “I am doing you a favor by eating you before you know the pain of it!”

“I promise if you release me I will return with my love and you shall have two birds for dinner!” He squawked alluringly.

“What a terrible thing you are, but very well,” said the old woman, removing a red ribbon from her hair. “Take this ribbon in your beak and fly until you find your one true soul mate. You can return to me after you have felt the agony of love and I will relieve you of it.”

And so the bird was released and he flew away cackling with the ribbon in his mouth. Foolish woman! Who would willingly return to a cooking pot?

Still, the bird was curious, so he flew all about, trying to see if he could find his love with the red ribbon. He flew days and days. He flew over mountains and under tree branches. He flew until he ached.

Tired from the effort, the bird soared lazily over a lake, ribbon trailing in the water. Suddenly, there was a tug on the end and he flipped tail over head, spinning his wings to keep aloft. There, on the other end of the ribbon, was a fish.

“Let go!” He snapped angrily at the interruption. He was trying to find his true love!

“No,” said the fish, “this ribbon is mine.”

The bird flapped hard and pulled the fish out of the water. She flicked her tail twice, but did not let go.

Frustrated at the failure of the ribbon, the bird dragged the fish onto the shore, where she lay gasping wetly, ribbon in her teeth. “Stupid fish!” The bird screeched, “let it go!”

“No,” she whispered, scales shuddering, “this ribbon is my ribbon. This ribbon..." her breath slowed under the effort, "was made... for me.”

The bird tried to spit the cloth out and disconnect the two of them, but it was stuck in his mouth. Infuriated at all that had happened to him, he stabbed the fish with his beak and began to eat her. The ribbon may not have found his true love, but it had found him a meal.

The fish did not struggle or cry, but watched him with her large, dark eye. After a moment, the gaze became flat.

Triumphantly, the bird tore the ribbon from the dead fish’s mouth and snipped her heart out to swallow it whole. However, when it settled into his stomach there came a horrible, wrenching pain.

Terrified at the feeling, he flew as fast as he could to the old woman’s hut, hoping she could explain. The heart inside him pulsed against his own. It was unbearable. It was terrifying.

When at last he reached her windowsill, the woman was waiting with a smile on her face. “I see you have returned, and with your true love! Such a good, honest creature!”

The bird could not stand the agony inside of him. He saw the boiling cooking pot on the stove and flew over to the fire, dropping the now bloodstained ribbon into the old woman’s open palm. Without pause he dove into the water to meet his true love.

The pain of death could not compare to the one pulsing in his breast.


copyright D.C.Wilson