The Phoenix in Ashes

There I was flying high, dancing on the gusts of my friends the winds. Moving in and out of all my brother's and sister's flocks like a member of the family long lost. Enjoying our times together through the storms and the sun. When the rain got bad we just flew higher to find the sun and our days were always better.

Until the day when the storm grew bigger than we had ever seen. Lightning like no other, winds not like our friends, the clouds faces of demons they were. I saw it from miles away, my vision better than most, a sister and a brother in the way of a spear being thrown from one of those demon faces. I flew faster than any other and intercepted it's intended victims, instead it was me. Plummeting to the ground my little mind wandered. What was a bird's life for?

Remembering the time when, as a fledgling, I learned to fly by falling out of the nest. Many other times I was reminded how to fly when the nest was destroyed by falling branches, hungry cats, and Mommy or Daddy. I remember as my wings grew stronger and stronger the more times I left the nest. Until one day I was flying by myself and caught a wind current that took me far away.

I remember meeting the Wise One. He is a flying one's legend. He taught me about the family of birds and how we all would look out for one another in time. That the Wise One would teach us all how to fly himself. He taught me not just how to avoid falling, but how to soar higher. Even when it looked like the ground was going to swallow me, the Wise One taught me how to feel the winds and to help them so they would help me. Friends working together.

Next I remember return to my brother and sister birds, how at first they thought I was crazy. As they watched me fly, they started to believe; some even left to go find the Wise One themselves. Some came back, some didn't. The Wise One told me we would all catch up soon, that the ones that never returned had great stories to tell.

Now, even with the Wise One's teachings, this spear of light from the demon faces made it all nothing. I was falling to be swallowed by the earth and not one of my brothers or sisters are coming to help. They are to scared of the demon faces. If they learned how to really fly....

What's this? My wings look like red flowers and pain fills them. This pain is new and the red flower is spreading. I smell funny, I smell like the dark clouds with the painful wind that some times the tall ones create. Wait!!! They made the red flower for those clouds now its me!!!! Help!!!!!

The earth didn't swallow me, the pain is gone, but now all....... Red........ Flower... .....

--- Silence ---

Wait, something new. I am new....... I hear the Wise One speaking, 'Rise My Phoenix'

What was the Phoenix thinking while it was ashes, waiting to be reborn?