Forbidden birds, Eduardo Galeano

wanted to share this story with you :)


Forbidden birds

1976, in a jail building, called “Freedom”

“The Uruguayan political prisoners may not talk without permission, or whistle, smile, sing, walk fast, or greet other prisoners; nor may they make or receive drawings of pregnant women, couples, butterflies, stars or birds.

One Sunday, Didaskó Pérez, schoolteacher, tortured and jailed for “having ideological ideas,” is visited by his daughter Milay, a five-year-old. She brings him a drawing of birds. The guards destroy it at the entrance of the jail.

On the following Sunday, Milay brings him a drawing of trees. Trees are not forbidden, and the drawings get through. Didaskó praises her work and asks about the colored circles scattered in the treetops, many small circles half-hidden among the branches:

“Are they oranges? What fruit is it?”

The child puts her fingers to his mouth:

“Ssssshhh!" And she whispers in his ear:

“Silly! Don’t you see they’re eyes? They’re the eyes of the birds that I’ve smuggled in for you.”