The Caged Bird Sings

Based on a line from Caged Bird by Maya Angelou

Caleb wandered along the unending corridors, the clothes his mother had forced him to wear restricting his breathing. He looked through an arched window. The garden was beautiful, that was the only word to describe it. It was a huge expanse of well-tamed wilderness. Paradise for a young boy like Caleb. He could see the towering palms and spreading ferns. The iron fences bordering the land held back the ever-approaching forest, clawing to get in. He could hear the distant sound of the party floating up the mahogany staircase. He pulled at the stiff collar, his skin red and itchy underneath. The well polished floorboards gleamed in the slivers of sunlight seeping in through the leaf covered window. Caleb tugged off his formal black shoes, revealing snagged cotton socks beneath, and slid all the way down the hall. He only stopped when he clumsily hit another window at the far end of the passage. The garden continued towards every point on a compass, branching out into the woodland, its green fingertips spraying out like a child reaches for its mother. Caleb's ears twitched as they so often did when he heard something he liked. On this occasion it was the gushing river that excitedly meandered its way across the grounds, cutting the land in half. He imagined the feeling of the refreshing flow lapping his hot feet and the sound of his mother laughing as he splashed her with the cool water. The river frolicked in the summer sun, glinting. He turned away from the sight and was preparing himself to skid back down the corridor when he felt a pleasant draft on the side of his neck. He whipped his head round and found himself looking squarely at a door which he had not previously noticed. In his head, Caleb had assumed that the breeze was a monster blowing on him and was prepared to fight. Slightly disheartened, he pushed the ajar door further open.