No More Than the Feathers of a Wing

By Alessandro Caselli

Thief is a young magpie who decides not to leave the nest as she is too attached to its walls and all the objects inside it. But these objects also weigh her life down to the point that in the end she has to make a drastic choice. Will she carry on living a lonely life as a slave to her desires or will she change direction and face a life that is just as solitary but free from the chains that Thief herself had used to tie her to her “treasures”?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Jun 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781071537770

Book preview

For Simone, who loves magpies.

For Marzia, who showed me the world out there.

For Jonathan, Donald and Richard.

For Nut and Thief.

Introduction

We often feel lonely. We are prisoners of our own way of life and we don’t even notice the wonders around us any more. There are people, animals, trees, rivers, seas and mountains and yet we still feel lonely.

There are at least two types of loneliness. The first is typical of people who close themselves into their own world, made up of false promises and false treasures. And the second is the type that accompanies those who follow their dreams but are then isolated from the others. The magpie Thief closes herself inside her nest to gaze at her sequins, whereas the seagull Jonathan likes to soar in the sky. Both of them live a solitary life, but for different reasons.

Not many of us behave like Jonathan but many of us behave like Thief, losing the ability tell real treasure from