growth
My Darling, What if You Fly? Cara Gose Three years ago, she woke up as a bird. A chick, actually, brand new to the world and ripe with potential and absolutely terrified. She woke up buried beneath the sheets and pillows she had fallen asleep under as a slice of a human being, a mere six hours ago. She didn’t realize she was a bird right away; she was only aware of the soft, crushing darkness against her back, the slow siphon of air from the sheets, her tiny heart thump thump thumping against her fragile ribcage. She pushed against the sheets in an impressive display of baby bird strength, a creature of desperation and panic. All that seemed to accomplish was a few sharp bobbles from under the covers and a little heart beating with exhaustion as well as fear. She caught her breath with air she couldn’t afford to lose. Somewhere in between hypoxia and adrenaline, a bit of light caught her eye, and for the first time as a baby bird, she thought. She weaved forward, flopping over wooly clumps of blanket as large as boulders and as tall as mountains. She could feel a draft through the fine fibers of her soft, downy feathers, like a cool breeze on a spring morning. She took a deep breath and burst out from under the covers into sunlight so blinding it paralyzed her, and she tumbled gracelessly to the ground. When she finally shook herself, stood, and regathered her wits, she saw the world
above her, a looming and unfamiliar monster licking its lips, ready to gobble her up. She trembled in her new, helpless little body, wishing she could shed herself and fade into nothingness. Baby birds, however, don’t have the ability to cry. She retreated to a secluded corner of the room that used to be her sanctuary, returning to a darkness she had just escaped. She sat there, slipping in and out of a ghostlike sleep, cherishing the vanishing of her consciousness for one moment and desperately stealing it back the next. When she woke, fully and properly, she found herself blinking directly into sunlight. She waddled out from the corner, squinted, and saw a windowsill through the white patches in her vision. The windowsill did not seem very high, and if she could leave, she thought, she could get help. In a rapid series of hops and flutters, scrambling onto books, chairs, and two shelves, she stood, nothing but her feet between her and the rest of the world. She was amazed at the freshness of the air through the crack in the window and the vibrancy of the trees, at how her eyes could now pick apart every blade of grass. She could see her neighbor across the street as perfectly as on a picture screen, ambling around his kitchen, and knew that he would be able to help. She approached the edge, glanced over, felt dizzy. Stepped back, exhaled
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