The Flash.

She rises each morning, at the crack of dawn, to care for her children. Always at the same time, never remiss in her expected duties. Each morning, she obliges their chirps, petulant and impetuous demands.

Never faltering and certainly never failing.

She looks into the distance, he's nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he went out in the night, although that certainly isn't like him. But no time to worry about that, she has voracious appetites to satisfy, which she already prepared for. After all, she's been through this ritual ever since their birth. She gives them what they clamor for, they chirp less, the morsels they consumed satisfying their bellies and subsequently quelling their neediness. She's a professional, she knows what she's doing.

Never faltering and certainly never failing.

She looks on coldly at them. They're now quiet, mollified temporarily. But certainly not permanently, much as she would like them to be. Abstract, omniscient, obligations ties her to them. Can't be severed even with the sharpest implement. They wouldn't live without her, and she couldn't live without them. A vicious cycle of surrendering your life to others. Selflessness makes others happy, but how much happiness can you really derive from pleasing others? It wasn't bringing her much pleasure. In fact, quite the opposite. Misery permeated everything. But what could she do? Leave them? Go some place else? There was no way.

At the moment, things were idyllic. From where she was, all she could see was vast and infinite green. The beauty and size of nature was truly something to behold. The silence wasn't deadly, as it usually would be, but calming and therapeutic. The follies of life were sudden and unrelenting, but moments like these were to be relished. There's nothing quite like it, and she truly appreciated, loved, the opportunity. There were only occasional flashes of serenity like this.

Suddenly, she heard a rumbling from underneath her. A mechanical monstrosity meandered into the plain, crushing all that stood before it. It came straight for them, knocking over the tree. She spread her wings and took flight in alarm, pausing for nothing, not realizing the nest was destroyed in a flash. They were gone. She didn't have time to look back, just narrowly escaping with her life. In an instant, it was all gone. In an instant, all was shattered. The peace was taken away. It was all over.

She had faltered. She had failed. But it wasn't her fault.

PS. Meditating to Massive Attack makes you write really weird shit.