monster as anything more than a reminder of death and cruel servitude. At worse, their bodies already line the
stones or the surrounding grassland. Ten paces ahead, she sees a woman collapse, and the stones beside her
become marked with dark rivulets of tears. Even if she does not know the woman, her heart still clenches. We
are all sufferers, she thinks, under the hand of hard masters. They do not consult us; they do not care about us.
Our deaths are no more dear to them than the death of a pig or ox.
Above her, in the clear, unmarked sky, a hawk screeches - a free, fierce creature of its own will. She
looks up, startled, and suddenly remembers the birds they once caught. She and her brother used to play with the
village leader’s son - now the village leader himself - and the other children, chasing the farm animals, running
up and down the hills, fishing and splashing in the streams. The village leader’s son spied a pair of young hawks
wheeling in the skies, and, when they swooped lower, tried to catch them. His initial attempt rewarded him with
two scratches and two empty hands; men were sent to bring them down unharmed.
When the leader and his son were able to clutch the birds to their breasts, a servant was sent to fetch
clippers and a knife. She was confused - they had captured the hawks unharmed, taking so much care not to
injure the birds - why, now, did the leader seemed to want to hurt them? Did he mean to torture them? When the
tools were brought, the leader proceeded to cut part of the eagles’ wings off. She later came to understand that it
was called pinioning, in which they would remove the ends of birds’ wings so they could not fly far and escape
their masters.
She also recalls that the hawks did not take well to their treatment. The village leader’s son loved them
to pieces, and would constantly take them out of their cage to tease them or to show off, but his joy was short-
lived. One refused outright to eat and died within a week. The other survived for a few years, but could not
longer fly or swoop properly as it had done so, and its feathers lost its lustre.
Since then she has often wondered what the hawks thought, if the hawks could think for themselves.
Were they angry? Sorrowful? In pain? They had had their freedom taken away forever; had they ever
contemplated escape? Did they shriek and claw when manhandled by their masters? She cannot remember
clearly, but she does not think they did - she would have heard no end of it had they done so. They accepted
their fate silently, and were forced to bear it until the end of their days. Sometimes she thinks that the one that
died after a week was lucky - it enjoyed an early escape from a life of being reduced from a magnificent
predator to house pet.
The bird above her is now gone. Her gaze trails back to her husband, who continues to slave under the
sun, the sweat, and the watchful eye of the foreman, without a word of complaint. She does not know if she
ought to love his tenacity and endurance, or hate his willingness to submit. But then, is she any better? She has
allowed them to play with her as a puppeteer might move his marionettes; the only thing she has not permitted
them to manipulate is her heart. Is he the same? Beneath the broken flesh and worn-out bones, is his spirit still
complete? Does he mutely rebel at the way in which he is forced to serve this faraway emperor, suffer such pain
for a wall and the said emperor’s desires? Does he, like her, think: partly, it is simply because I cannot give in;
partly, it is in protest, it is the only way I can oppose them?
She wishes she knew. She wishes she no longer had to witness this endless ridge of stone and flesh, of
struggles and pain, of tears and death. She wishes that things were not so, that distant people with greater power
than oneself could do anything to one. She lifts her eyes to the sky, and a thought crosses her mind: had they not
clipped my wings, perhaps I, too, could soar.
But I have been pinioned. We all have. And we will never fly again.
* * *