On a grey, ice-cold day in the mountains, the bird left the sky.
In much the same way an autumn leaf drifts to earth when it is ready to leave its tree, the bird quietly slipped through the bitter wind currents to land on the brown earth. In a nearby hedge of gnarled wisteria trunks, the bird sank into the ground.
It was almost too cold to fly, and the bird wanted to regain its strength.
But there were two dogs on the other side of the wisteria hedge. They could smell the bird and they returned to nose at the hedge inquisitively at first, and then frustratedly and loudly until their human took them away. After the first flinch to the dog noise, the bird didn’t react at all, but it was better after the dogs left.
The bird sat and rested and didn’t move in the gathering grey gloom of the afternoon’s descent into dusk.
At night, the sky and the air twinkled with frost and stars. It was colder than ever, but the bird was rested now.
It lifted its head to look at the sky, bright eyes drinking in the night. Then, the bird repeated an echo of the star constellations across over its body.
And finally, it stood and stretched its wings.
It was ready to fly on.
Backstory: This story was inspired by a true moment in the Blue Mountains. A little sparrow took shelter in the wisteria hedge and wouldn’t move even after my dogs sniffed near it repeatedly (from the other side of the fence). Yes, I took the dogs away as soon as I realised the bird was there. The bird didn’t even move when I approached cautiously. The wildlife helpline told me it was just resting, probably tired by the cold (I felt you, tiny bird, I felt you!) Sure enough, a pre-dusk check showed the birdie had gone on its way. Hopefully to live a long, healthy life. I wrote the experience into a tiny tweet as a moment to remember.
The bird images were actually from a blob of leftover paint (from painting with my LittleOne) I was trying to use up. It was a completely accidental combination of colours at the end of a square-tipped brush that I dabbed onto the back of a cereal packet, which I thought looked remarkably bird-like. I realised I could pair the image with my long-ago tweet, and when I made the photoshopped sparkle effect, that was my inspiration to imbue the story bird with some sparkle-star magic.
Ree-Imagined Worlds 
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