The story starts by talking about a description of a heron who is lazy and indifferent and who is flying around. It seems that he has a goal in mind. The heron is checking things out down there on the earth from way high between the clouds yet. He’s watching a church, a lake, and a mountain. The scene sometimes is blocked by the clouds - which have different shapes. The bird, which represents the human being’s lost soul, is trying hard, and has been for a long time, to get the true meaning behind all that he’s seeing; to understand the meaning of life.
It’s now midday in the story and also mid-story because the whole story is just one day. And he’s still watching new things but it seems from the description (wheels, omnibuses, smoke trailing from the chimneys ….) that the heron is much closer now to the land. After that, the bird gets closer to the point that he can see inside people’s houses and his confusion is still the same if it’s not increasing. He is seeing wealthy and powerful people, but he’s also seeing normal average people. Subsequently, the bird thinks about what he’s seeing and how severely fluctuating the lives of the people are and how different people’s lives are from each other. All of which doesn’t help with his confusion and makes understanding the truth about life far-fetched.
After a tiresome journey, the heron sits by the fireside, as if he’s a human being, thinking more about everything that he saw before (new things are mentioned here: ‘minarets’ and ‘the Indian Seas’). He’s still trying to figure out the truth about existence. Meanwhile, a voice inside him is telling him to appreciate what he already has and stop this annoying pondering that’s leading to him being more lost in life. But he didn’t listen to that voice apparently. He returned to flying around and remained in his current state of being lazy and indifferent.
