The Red Bird

In a grey and dark city surrounded by a grey and dark forest lived a girl all alone.
The girl had been spending a very long time trying to find a way out of the city she lived in. She could remember times in which the city had been a happier, brighter and more beautiful place, and she could sometimes even remember when it had changed into the lonely and terrible place it was now, but she did not know how to turn it back. All she knew was that somehow, she had to escape the city, but although she had been trying for a very long time, she had never been able to find her way out.
There was nothing in this city. No weather, no colour, no emotions, no other people, no animals broke the monotony of the dark, grey buildings and streets surrounding the girl. The only thing she had left to remind her of the happier days in her past was her bright red hair which fell over the girl's shoulders and back like a wilderness, and which had always been her pride and joy.
As she spent more and more hours of the day lying in her bed trying to remember the past, and less and less searching for a way out of the grey and dark city, the girl grew weaker and weaker. She hid under her increasingly less-like-a-wilderness hair and tried to forget she existed. She was succeeding quite well in her pursuit of oblivion when she heard an incessant tapping sound. She tried to ignore it but something about the tapping sound was so alluring she had to find out what was happening, so she swept away her hair and looked out from under her covers.
In the windowsill outside her bedroom window sat a little round and scrawny bird. It was grey and manky and hadn't a feather on its body, but his eyes were kind and sparkled with an unknown (to the girl) joy in life, so she opened her window to have a closer look at it.
When the window opened the bird immediately hopped onto the girl's shoulder and snuggled up to her neck. From where the bird sat a warm glow spread out to the very tips of the girl's body, and she lay back on the bed and cuddled the bird close to her.
When they were settled quite comfortably, the bird started speaking. He had the most beautiful voice the girl had ever heard, and he told her of the most beautiful things she had ever heard of. He spoke of people and places which were filled with laughter and joy, and with tears and sorrow, and colour and light and darkness and beauty and everything mixed up together. He spoke on and on through the night, and his stories blended with the girl's dreams, filling them with emotions and experiences she had long forgotten existed.
When she woke up the girl felt the world was tiny bit brighter and warmer than before. She looked at the bird and saw he had gotten tangled up in her hair. She managed to free him but one of her hairs was wound too tightly around his body so she pulled it out of her head, and as the bird flew away the hair formed a little trail behind him. The girl tried to remember everything the bird had told her through the night but found that soon, the darkness of the city around her weighed on her too much and she cried for she thought she would never see the bird again, and thus never experience joy (no matter if it was of the dream variety) again.
But in the evening the little bird was tapping at her window again, and now he had one long, red feather on his head which trailed behind his tiny body. Again they snuggled up and he told her his stories all night long, making her forget about the grey and dark city she lived in.
The next morning again, she had to free the little bird from her hair, leaving one tangled around his neck. That evening he came back with two feathers on his head, both flowing behind him in the warm breeze that seemed to follow him everywhere.
So it continued for many evenings, until the girl felt strong enough to go out again in the day, looking for the road that would take her out of the city and into the forest, where, she hoped, she could eventually escape from as well. The city was vast and the girl never found a way out, but whenever she would get close to despair she would go home and wait for the bird, who was starting to look better and better every evening he came around.
One morning the girl noticed that she didn't have many hairs left, and she realised she would have to find the way out of the city before her last hair was gone, because she was certain that after he had taken her last hair, the bird would never return...
So she stayed up later and later, searching all day and most of the night, but she never once found her way out, and she started to fear she never would. But every night when she went to sleep for the few hours she allowed herself to rest, the bird would sit by her and tell her the most beautiful stories. Every night she had different and marvelous dreams, which were better than her dreams before the bird because she knew that somewhere hidden amongst them was a promise, a realness that she would be able to grasp if only she knew how, if only she knew her way out of the horrible city that kept her prisoner...
And then came the evening on which the girl only had one hair left on her head. She worked harder than she ever had before to make sure she had looked everywhere, opened every door, looked through every window, and turned every corner, but still she could find no way out. When at last it was almost morning again, she let herself fall on her bed in tears, enjoying for the last time ever the comfort of the bird who had been waiting for her since dusk.
In the morning when she woke up all her hair was gone, and the bird was stood in front of her, looking at her with his kind and joyful eyes. He was more beautiful than she had ever seen, a big red bird with an almost golden glow, and her last hair wound around his neck.
With tears in her eyes, she kissed the bird goodbye and prepared herself for the long search ahead of her that day. As she walked away she heard the bird call her name, a name no one had used in a very long time and which she had almost forgotten herself. She turned around to him and saw him smile at her. He started speaking again, but for the first time it was not a story of people and places the girl did not know.
He said to her; 'When you need a way out, remember that I am part of you now, and you are part of me, and nothing will ever change that.'
The girl looked at him confused, but then she remembered how he had looked that first night he had come to her, and how he looked now. And then she remembered how she had looked then and how she looked now, and she understood.
And as one, they flew off into the sunshine, leaving the city and forest behind them forever.