Meiru: Soaring in The Sky

“Meiru, I think it’s an eagle,”

Meiru, who was at the kitchen, walks out through back door and approaches her mother in the backyard. She stands beside her mother and follows her mother’s gaze. There are a sole creature flies in the sky. A bird, big enough to be seen in that distances.

“Yes, it is,” says Meiru.

She continuous to observe the bird. The bird flying alone to the east. Then it glides to the right, turns left, and maintaining it’s course back to the east. And then it soars, it’s slowly getting higher without flapping its wings.

“Yep, definitely an eagle,”

Meiru now is assure that the bird is an eagle from the way it flies. Most birds fly in the same way. But eagles still have another kind of flight which can be differentiated it’s kind from other birds, soaring. Using the thermal that rises from the ground, eagles can get higher and higher without much effort.

“Oh no. The water!”

Meiru rushes to get back into the house. She was boiling a pot of water before her mother called her up. When she gets back into the kitchen, the water was already boiling. She turns off the stove quickly and pours the hot water into two mugs she prepared earlier. Inside each of those two mugs, there is a teaspoon of cacao powder and two teaspoons of sugar. Then Meiru stirs it until it dissolves completely.

Meiru brings mugs to the dining table. Her mother, who followed her inside not long after, was sitting on one of the chairs. Meiru sits on the opposite side of her mother. She places one mug in front of her mother and one in front of herself.

“It’s rare to see an eagle in a city like this,” says Meiru.

“Yes,”

“Or maybe they were flying when we were not looking,”

“Maybe there is someone who owns it,”

“So many possibilities,”

Meiru and her mother chuckle together. What happened this afternoon brings back Meiru’s old memories. It was the memory when she saw an eagle with her own eyes for the first time. As a kid, she always loved to watch documentary films. She likes the eagle and always want to see it with her own eyes. Eventually, she got to saw one when she didn’t expect it.

It was when she and her family went to the beach in a holiday. When they drove to the beach, her brother saw it in the distance and told her about it immediately. It flew above the blue water to a small rocky island with a lonely tree on top. It landed on one o the branch. The two of them thought that it must have had a nest there.

They stared at the small island until it disappeared from their sight, blocked by the trees. After that time, whenever they went to that beach, she would always check the island. Hope that she would catch a glimpse of it again. But she never did.

And now, Meiru is glad to have seen that majestic animal again. Perhaps, because it is so hard to see it flying free, the moment like she just had before is precious. And the sight of the eagle has made her day more exciting. Meiru smiles at the thought.

『明瑠』