A feather, fallen from an ocean-bird, plucked by an innocent passerby.
Who knows what it was that caught his eye. The symmetry? The stunning gray tones?
Perhaps. But the taupe tone of the sand with the sighing of the waves provided a backdrop for the poetic feather and produced an image, an image whose composition sat very well with the young observer. He loved the pretty image so much that he kept the feather, and put it away for (what he supposed was) safe-keeping. Regrettably, the fragile feather wasn’t to go on unharmed: it was crushed horribly in its moments within the curious observer’s pocket, and his walk was accompanied by a saddened snap with every third step.

It is interesting how an entity can change in such a way. The general object is relatively unmolested, but the order, the opus, fades. One may try to revive such an object, but the original image will always be marked and scratched. Our feather, a fragment of soul and magnificent existence, will only ever hint of the beauties of the world, a situational muse, but will never replace them. For such things are, in nature, fleeting, and can never stay in bloom for long.
So is it a foolish endeavor, reviving a feather? No, for it is human to hope.