The Cranes — Las grullas

The Cranes

The cranes have returned early this year to the lake house.

Often I refuge here from the irretrievably inhumane life of the city, and also to remember my son who disappeared in the lake a few months ago. Despite the efforts of the search, I was unable to find his body.

That morning, one of the cranes approached me, without any modesty, a few meters from the cabin, stared at me and started to growl, with a very high-pitched sound that modulated until it went out. It was like he was asking or begging for something.

The next day, several of them surrounded the house and it seemed as if they were following the instructions of the crane that had visited me the day before. One of them, stretching her long neck, dared to stick her head through one of the windows.

At night, when I was already in bed reading the Twilight flash fiction https://minutorelatos.blogspot.com/ on my tablet, I heard a kind of sobbing. I got up stealthily, and with a flashlight searched for the origin of that half-human sound. My surprise was all the more surprising when the light from the flashlight showed me a baby crane in a corner looking at me with frightened eyes. I went back to my bed and fell sound asleep.

Very early in the morning I heard the cranes growl. They seemed to be demanding my attention. When I went out with the baby and left it on the ground, there was a big stir and the cranes, with their deafening songs, seemed to thank me for giving…