Vapor Trails
The bird could see all the foolishness of air travel. Earthbound species, not blessed with wings or the ability to hover in midair were being charged for the truly wonderful experience that he and his avian brethren could enjoy for absolutely nothing. There were many things that Aquila did not understand about the animals who lacked the means to fly- their love of money and material goods, the jobs they were beholden to, and their willingness to spread to the ends of the earth. To be fair, Aquila and his friends had taken the wings they had for granted for so long that maybe it would be fair for them to someday lose their ability to fly just to see how it felt. They would be in so many respects, fish caught out of water.
And then, Aquila knew, that all the birds in the world bereft of the blessing of flight would only be a shadow of their former selves. So every night Aquila was thankful for the gift of flight and knew then why other animals would work so hard to have such a blessing. The ability to feel the wind beneath you, carrying you on, the vantage point so high as to see rivers, lakes, cities, and mountains, the very curvature of the earth itself, not to mention the rapid transit across that vast earth- flight was something Aquila and his avian friends could not ever live without.
But yet, there was always something which bothered Aquila and this question also bothered many of the other birds as well, from Corvus to Falco to Cristata. From their aeries and nests high aloft in the trees, these birds would survey the planes rising from the earth, carrying the passengers who the birds viewed as jealous of the secret of flight and stupid for traveling in flying metal tubes. It was not so much the takeoff or the landing or how the machines worked (many of the birds had got entangled in the airplanes, resulting in many tragic deaths, to the point where they stayed away from the planes) but the clouds those planes produced.
The birds had overheard enough conversation to know what these clouds were called- they were known as "vapor trails". And they had also gleaned enough information to know it had something to do with the plane's exhaust. But in spite of their distinct lack of knowledge about how planes work, the vapor trails, these line-shaped clouds, marking, cross-hatcheting and sometimes "fish-netting" the skies with rows and columns and diagonals had captured their imagination. High in the stratosphere, the birds saw these clouds, at first perfect lines degenerate into perfectly wispy cirrus clouds the shape of horsetails and filled with ice crystals. What to make of these clouds which behaved like no others? These narrow slits of condensation suspended aloft in narrow white trails bewildered the birds. And it reminded them of the prophecies spoken by their great avian prophets.
"When the others (non-birds) gain our gift, many of our sons and daughters shall fall. And someday the sun will turn black and the world itself will lose all color, turning gray. The universe will be thrown out of alignment, as the stars, the suns of other worlds will be thrown from the night, and the oceans which we fly across will all drain and fade away."
Many of the birds were afraid to live in the end times but a few like Aquila were perplexed, and maybe a little spellbound by these strange new inventions, inferior in every way to their natural gift of flight yet also somewhat captivating. Obviously, the creatures of the earth had been jealous for countless millennia and wanted to fly too. And the other creatures with their triumphant wizardry had invented something which made this dream a reality. And now these mysterious inventions which seemed profane enough to kill the birds if they got too close yet divine enough to inspire shock and mystery at their sight were leaving behind white signatures on the big blue sky in the form of line-shaped clouds. These clouds stretched from horizon to horizon, bridging the east with the west, memories of mechanical flight written on the winds. And then the components of this cloud would fade away in only a few hours, like the sands of an hourglass, like life itself- the winds upon which these rows and columns were supported would sweep these clouds into chaotic swirls, much like the winds of a hurricane distort and drown out noises.
And some of the clouds lasted longer than others, Aquila noticed dependent upon the temperature and humidity (being so close to the air, birds like Aquila made the greatest meteorologists), again much like individual lives themselves. But soon, in a short while all these marks would be vaporized by currents. These small little statements, little signatures would be thrown away and rendered insignificant. In much the same way that the smallest members of the avian kingdom, the ones who heralded the arrival of springtime and the rebirth of the world were silenced and killed by the frosts of winter, these anemic lines would be swept away by the cruel world.
"Every forest will burn to ash and then who will speak of the forest's inhabitants?" was a question created by an owl philosopher many years ago, one whose name Aquila didn't quite remember but still would be highly relevant in considering the vapor trails and how they related to life in general. Our lives, the birds reckoned were a mere blink of the eye in comparison to the age of the universe. Some day when all was said and all was done, no one would come to speak of us, no one would tell of our great deeds (or the deeds we had once thought of as being great).
The birds would cry out to the universe in a chorus that they were alive and happy to be alive but that would not create in the universe any sense of obligation. If they needed proof of their own inadequacy, all the birds needed to do was look at the planes themselves- for generations, it was thought that they and only they would hold the secrets of flight but somebody else who was not a bird found out. And then the joys flight would lose its meaning when everyone could experience it. So the birds really were not that special after all, a fact that Aquila tried not to admit.
And he knew that the birds, the other creatures, even the world itself will all be washed away like pawprints in the rain... in a vapor trail.
Horizon to horizon
Memories written on the wind
Fading away like an hourglass grain by grain
Swept away like voices in a hurricane... in a vapor trail.