Unchained Metaphor

OK, after reflection, I changed the title of the last post so that it has the more pretentious title that I decided not to use. Sorry - if you already read it, then you don't need to re-read, unless you didn't get the obscure message...

There is a thriving set of "associations" in our town (An association in France is a publicly-funded organisation that makes no money (a .org)). Last weekend was an exhibition organised by the local ornithological society. Now, I am fond of birds- I have bird boxes and feeding boxes ready to help them through the winter and give them a home in the spring. However, what I hate is to see caged birds. I have an almost overwhelming urge to open the cages and set them free. Pet shops are a nightmare for me as seeing caged parrots hopping from perch to perch makes me sad and angry - I have seen them in the wild and that is where they belong.

Visiting the exhibition last week brought this urge to new heights. Picture the scene: You walk into a room and are confronted with 6 rows of cages, each row with 4 cages piled on each other, and each row containing 40 cages: 480 bird cages. Each cage is 50 x 50 x 50 cm and there is a single tiny bird in each, all of them singing and generating a reverberating cacophony in such a small room. It was an impressive sight!

Each bird was beautiful, especially from someone who comes from a place where there is a constant screech of seagulls and the only colour is provided by blue-tits and robins if you are lucky (although pigeons do have an impressive chest when puffed-up during the mating season).

I have never seen such shapes and colours in birds. Tiny birds with striking purple, yellow and red intertwined, pale yellow, bright pink birds, birds with crests, feathers pointing in all directions and many more. My kids were fascinated: a beautiful sight when viewed individually.

However, the ensemble, to me, was depressing - these birds did not belong here, neither free-flying or caged. Although I could never have acted on it, the urge to set them all free was overwhelming. I imagined a lever which would open all the cages at the same time and set them all free to fill the hall with their noise and colours before flying, as one, through the door to freedom. It would have been like the explosions of colour that Sony put together for their TV ad recently (the one with the explosions of paint from tower blocks) - maybe they should consider it for a future version.

It could never have happened, but what a sight it would have been!