Ever since it can remember, the little bird has longed to fly as high as the sky will allow. Up where no other bird has ever dared to venture, where the air is thinnest, yet the sun is always closest. The daily rest on trees and power lines bored it, and besides, it was often cloudy and cold down below.

Only here, far up above, does it feel free, does it feel safe, carried by all the soft and fluffy clouds. Yet every now and then it must pay a price for its recklessness — for up there, just above the clouds, storms like to gather too.

Abruptly, and mostly without warning, the paradise the little bird was just taking a bath in simply vanishes. The clouds thicken so much it can barely see. The cold sets in so fast there is no time left to find shelter. Caught within all those grey, cold clouds, the little bird freezes — its wings suddenly bound — and before it knows what is happening, it begins to fall.

Nothing can stop it. In a nosedive it plunges through the raging clouds, breaks into the rain, falls deeper and deeper.

The little bird is lucky, for down below the ocean waits. It always knows it will survive, even if the surface of the water is hard and the impact hurts.

While all the other birds have long taken shelter on land, the little bird is now alone with its fate. Above the clouds, one tends to lose one’s bearings.

No one can rescue it out here, no one can share its suffering — the little bird is entirely on its own. And it sinks and sinks, through every shade of blue.

At some point, when the light can no longer reach the depths, there is nothing left but black.

True darkness, true silence — unlike anywhere else in this world.

For a moment the little bird feels weightlessness, savours the calm and stillness that the wide, deep sea has to offer. Sometimes it wishes it could stay there longer, simply accept life as it is down below.

A dull thud accompanies the impact on the ground.

A sound full of relief, a sound full of clarity. In an instant, the natural instinct awakens — the little bird is in danger of drowning, and yet all it wants is to fly.

Suddenly it feels its wings again, and with all the strength it has, it begins to rise up from the depths. Down there is not its world — the little bird belongs in the sky.

Though it takes a while to reach the shore, it always knew what it had been fighting for. Exhausted, yet carried by passion, it shakes the last drops from its feathers.

For a moment it watches its fellow birds sitting calmly on trees and power lines, singing and enjoying their days. For just a moment, it considers joining them.

But then, through a small gap in the clouds, it catches sight of the sun standing high in the sky. Blinded by its brightness, drawn in by its warmth, there is only one clear option for the chilled little bird.

Full of longing and a bittersweet ache for paradise, it spreads its wings, lifts off, and flies with all its heart, higher and higher, up through the clouds, until it arrives once more at the place where everything feels right.

Above soft clouds, warmed by sunlight, back in paradise — hoping the next storm takes its time.