⏱ ~5 min reading
On the edge of the village, where the old walnut tree touched the roof with its branches, stood a tall birch. And on its highest branch was a large nest, with moss and twigs. A magpie lived there. Her name was Bystra - and not by chance. She was agile, chirping, with white sides and black and blue shiny feathers that shimmered in the sun like silk fabric.
And Bystra really, really loved shiny things. Everything that shone beckoned her to itself. A spoon would shine on the windowsill — Bystra would be there. A button would shine on the bench — and it would already be in her beak. A child would leave a silver foil from a candy on the grass — and the foil would fly up, straight into the nest.
There was just about everything in her nest! A small aluminum spoon from Grandma Hanna's kitchen. Someone's shiny metal button. An old coin from the market. A silver candy wrapper. A piece of Christmas tree rain left over from last Christmas. And even half of a small mirror that Grandpa Stepan had lost.
"Oh, how beautiful!" cawed Bystra, rummaging through her treasures with her beak. "Oh, how it shines! Oh, how it changes!"
But the neighbors in the village were angry. Then Grandma Anna cried out: «Where is my spoon? I’ve been looking for it all morning!» Then Grandma Zoya sighed: «The button on my sweater is gone, and it was Grandma’s.» Then little Olenka cried: «My candy… I wanted to show the foil to my friend!»
When Bystra flew across the yard, the grandmothers waved at her:
"You're stealing, Bystro! Shame on you!"
And Bystra just angrily clucked:
— T-t-t-t! I don't steal! I just love beautiful things! It was just lying there!
And she flew on - looking for new shiny trinkets.
One warm morning, Bystra sat down on a branch near a small forest well to drink water. The sun was directly opposite. She leaned down to the very surface and froze.
In the water she saw… someone. A black and white bird with shiny feathers. Colors played and danced in these feathers: now blue, then purple, then green, then again a dark silken sheen. The tail shimmered like a small rainbow. The eyes were like two black berries.
"Oh!" said Bystra. "Who is this handsome man?"
She turned her head - the bird in the water turned too. She raised her wing - and it raised itself. And suddenly Bystra understood. It was her. It was her reflection. It was herself - so shiny, so colorful, so alive.
Bystra looked into the water for a long time. And then she whispered softly:
— Oh… I’m brilliant too. And I’m real. Not cold like a spoon. Not dead like a button. Warm. Alive. My own.
She flew back to her nest. She sat on the edge and looked around at all her treasures. They had seemed so precious to her before. And now they seemed dim. Cold. Strange.
The spoon lay there and did not sing. The button was silent. The foil rustled, but not with its own rustle, but with an abandoned one. Each thing, as it turned out, had its place in someone's house, in someone's hand, in someone's story. And here, in its nest, they were just pieces of metal.
"It's not mine," Bystra said quietly. "It's someone else's. And it's sad.".
She took a small spoon in her paw. It was cold to the touch and scratched her claws a little. She thought quickly and decided.
"I'll give it back," she said to herself. "I'll give everything back to whom it belonged.".
The next morning, Bystra began her new, unusual task. She took a spoon in her beak and flew to Grandma Anna's hut. She sat on the kitchen windowsill and carefully placed the spoon right next to the cup of milk. Grandma, who was peeling potatoes, saw this through the glass - and gasped.
"Oh! It's my spoon! Hurry up, you brought it!"
The swift clucked proudly and flew on. She took half of the mirror to Grandpa Stepan. Grandpa took it in his palm and smiled into his gray mustache.
— Well, thank you, little brother! I mean… shirt!
Zoya took a button from a sweater to her grandmother. To little Alenka, a candy foil. All day long, Bystra flew back and forth, from the nest to the house, from the nest to the yard, until she returned everything she had collected.
Everyone, young and old, was amazed and thanked. And Grandma Hanna even brought a piece of fresh bread and cheese to the windowsill:
"This is for you, Bystro. For your honesty.".
Bystra didn't take a single crumb. She just spun proudly in the air, clicked twice, and flew back to her birch tree.
When she returned to the nest, it was empty. Nothing shone except her own feathers. And you know what? For the first time in her life, the nest seemed truly hers to Bystra. Spacious. Quiet. Hers.
She sat on a branch, turned her beak to the sun - and her feathers shone. Yes, as never before. They changed and shimmered, and every neighboring bird that flew by sighed: "What a beautiful magpie on the shore!"«
From that day on, Bystra flew with an empty beak and a full heart. She understood one quiet truth: she already had everything she had - in her feathers, in her wings, in her voice, in the sky above the village. And someone else's would become a burden, not a joy. And the best thing that shines is not a metal trinket, but a good deed. Because it shines from within and never fades.
✨ We already have everything we have within ourselves - what belongs to others becomes a burden, not a joy ✨