I

There was a bird in a tree. The bird was a plastic bird, and the tree was a Christmas tree. There was nothing special about the tree, nothing special at all, really. But if this average Christmas tree had anything to boast about, it was the fact that the small plastic bird perched on one of its branches, was special.

I don’t have to explain what the Christmas tree looked like. I can give you a starting point, but any more than a general idea would be a waste of my time and yours. If you must know, it was actually a fake Christmas tree. One of those you drag down from the loft every year, pull out of the box, assemble, and try your best to make look like the real thing. It never quite does, but you still try your best to make it look the part anyway.

This year, the same as every other, the tree had been dressed with red and silver tinsel and featured numerous baubles of various sizes and colours. It had chocolate coins underneath in a small silver dish, and resting on top of the tree was an angel. Anything else you want to add to this tree is entirely up to you. You can imagine it just as it is, or even with a few added features. It really does not matter too much. Yes, the Christmas tree is the main setting of this story, but it is not the main focus. The special plastic bird is.

The special plastic bird did not look special. It looked just like any other bird you may find decorating a Christmas tree. Dark brown, with a white and faded-orange chest, feathers made from a thin, rough faux fur. – designed to imitate the look of a robin.

As it was not real, the Robin could not perch on one of the Christmas tree’s branches via its own free will. Instead, it had small pieces of thin wire protruding from the bottom of each of its feet. This wire was wrapped tightly around a branch each year, ensuring the robin stayed in its designated position on its temporary, forced abode for the duration of the festive holiday. You would think this wire would be uncomfortable for the robin – painful even? But the robin is not real, so surely not?

The robin’s eyes – also plastic – had a shiny coating. These eyes were dark; black, with no emotion etched into their design. Although without emotion, the robin’s eyes somehow still looked as though they wanted to tell you something. Maybe they wanted to tell you a story, or whisper you a secret, if only anyone would pay enough attention to listen. No one did pay enough attention to its potential story or secret though. After all, it was just a dull plastic robin, brought down from a loft, year after year, for the sole purpose of adding a bit of colour to a fake Christmas tree.

A life in a dark, damp, dusty loft is a miserable life, even for an inanimate object. And the obligatory trip from gloomy loft to fake tree is only sugar in the wound – the promise of a vibrant, fun surrounding, only to be ignored throughout the festivities. Like a poor aunt who is invited round for the post-Christmas family get-together the day after Boxing Day. The poor aunt, who no one wants to talk to because she smells unclean, mumbles to herself and is generally thought of as being a dull entity with nothing to contribute to a holiday family gathering. The only reason she is there is because of tradition. This is how the robin feels; or at least, how it would feel if it had feelings.

How much would a plastic robin have to go through before it was forced to react? It had been five years. Shoebox, tree, loft, tree, loft, tree, loft, tree, loft, tree, loft – a robin can surely only be pushed so far until it has to take matters into its own wings – even if it is a fake robin with no beating heart or blood pumping through its little body.

II

As you’d expect, the robin was created in a warehouse by a production line worker, who on that day had already helped create scores of other identical robins.

Once fully formed, the robin waited with its kin to be packaged. It travelled to a shop and waited to be given a home. Its hurried and careless creation now in its past, it would have waited expectantly for a home it would have hoped would be warm, inviting and full of shared joy. If the robin could have thought any of these things, then it sadly would have had delusions of grandeur. Yes, its buyer did want it. But not for any higher purpose than to join a host of other relatively mundane decorations on a fake Christmas tree. When the robin’s new owner returned home, the man’s child said it was ‘just a boring’ bird’ (not a colourful train, which is what he was hoping for). We can only hope that the robin was out of earshot when this unthoughtful remark was delivered, just in case it could hear.

Once in its new home, the robin was placed in a shoebox and then cast into the light of Christmas soon after. For any lifeless object, regardless of its hopes and dreams, this is surely an acceptable, if not positive outcome?

But for this particular robin, maybe it wasn’t enough, and why should it be? Yes, it was able to see its ‘family’ each year, and of course, this was the most magical time of year: Mother, with her reindeer apron, fluttering around the kitchen, stressing over the Christmas dinner; Father, sipping at his whisky with his legs up on his foot stall, mumbling his way through the day until his traditional snooze after the Queen’s speech; Sister, unwrapping presents in her cute, excitable fashion, and growing up fast through the years – from Play-Doh to Barbie to bicycle to; and of course, the new addition to the family – Brother. Just six months old on the Robin’s first Christmas with its new ‘family’. And what a handsome, interesting young child this boy was – so observant, always intrigued, curious.

In some ways, the robin felt like it was part of this family (or it would have, if it had feelings). But it didn’t get spoken to, or looked at, or even noticed. It couldn’t dance along with Mother in the kitchen to Shakin’ Stevens, it couldn’t offer Father a refill of his Laphroaig, and it couldn’t play with Sister or help feed Brother.

But it was with Brother the robin felt like it had the closest bond. Maybe it’s because it had seen him grow and develop almost from birth (if it could see) – such a delightful young baby, child, boy.

But, as much as it may have yearned, the Robin couldn’t play with Brother or interact with him in any way. It seemed, even Brother’s strong curiosity of almost every aspect of life was not enough for him to notice the robin. And Brother was six now. Surely if he was going to notice and interact with the robin, it would have been in his most inquisitive years, now gone by. So, Robin was forced to perch on the same tree, in the same part of the house, every single year.

All the robin ever wanted was to be noticed, just for a split second. He didn’t yearn for chatter, complete inclusion, or even a wholesome loving relationship. Just a little recognition is all – a little appreciation for the fact it existed. But it never did get recognised. Without the gift of beauty to attract wonderment or excitement, without any quirky, elegant or even movable features, the robin had no chance of being noticed.

As you can imagine, the repetition and unfulfillment could become unbearable.

III

Light flooded the loft and a streak of warm glow shot through the holes of the grubby, cobwebbed box the robin had spent the past 12 months in. If the robin could have sighed, it would have. As excruciating as it may be to sit in the almost pitch black of the loft, sitting on that fake tree, watching the family enjoy another Christmas became even more painful. Such promise. Such disappointment.

But something was different. The house was quieter than normal. After Father had finished decorating the tree, he left the room, leaving the door closed ajar behind him.

Soon after, Brother – now eight years old, walked into the room.

Somehow, the robin caught the boy’s eye. (Or did the boy catch the robin’s eye?) The robin didn’t know how it achieved this most minimal of attractions, but it did. Magical. And then, in this tiny instance of fleeting recognition, the boy saw the robin’s head move. Or at least he thought he did. Did this plastic robin’s head move a fraction? He was sure it did. Its head turned towards him; just a millimetre maybe, but a movement all the same. How did an inanimate robin achieve this? What was happening? If you asked it, the robin wouldn’t be able to give you an answer, but if it could, its only explanation would probably be, ‘sheer will. And maybe magic’.

In this minute amount of time, the robin had been the focus of someone’s attention, even if just for the briefest of moments. And this was enough. The boy saw something in those eyes. He saw something that everyone else, including himself any time before, had failed, or even bothered to notice. Suddenly, the robin’s black eyes were brimming with emotion.

Did an unknown power or force move the robin? Had the boy imagined it, like young children sometimes do?

It is fair to say the boy was a little frightened. He may have even started to shake a little. Unable to control his anxious reflex of a double-take, he found himself looking at the robin once more. Standing alone in the silent room, he just stared. He didn’t scream, he didn’t run, he didn’t even back away. He just stared. Waiting – waiting for it to happen again – or for it not to happen again. Eventually, he mustered the strength and courage to turn his head away from the robin. But he could not help slowly turning back to look once more, to see if the robin would move again. There was still power behind those eyes, but not like in that first instance. The robin did not move this time, and it never did again. It didn’t have to.

IV

After several years, Brother – now old enough to be pretty certain magic isn’t real and inanimate objects cannot move by themselves – began to seriously doubt whether what he remembered happened at all (in the rare instance he thought about that moment). He often just thought it must have been a dream, or even a hallucination brought on by lack of sleep or a light fever. (Was he ill at the time?) His weakening memory of that day allowed him to make excuses for the mystery. But although the memory faded, the boy would never completely forget.

V

After this surreal incident, which may or may not have been the creation of the small boy’s imagination, the robin was still used as decoration on that fake Christmas tree for a few more years. But, after that minuscule but immensely powerful moment, life was much more bearable for the robin, even pleasurable at times (if it could feel pleasure, of course).

After those few more years, one Christmas, it was decided the robin’s work was done. And at the point, the life that may have been present behind the robin’s eyes, disappeared. But that was okay. Everything was ok. It was okay because the boy noticed the robin. If the robin had feelings, in the end, the overriding emotion would be one of contentment.