“Nice Day for a Flight”
Aug 10, 2019Wings spread wide, shoelaces untied, his shorts fell down around his ankles. It was 48 degrees outside and his balls shriveled like icicles. A man walked behind and startled him, the sound of a giant nose honking its solidarity with the lonely world.
His wings were clipped, so he’d be flying nowhere today. Or any day. His daddy clipped them when he was a young pup. His mother objected but she did nothing to stop it. Playing charades with the neighborhood kids would never be the same again.
He sat patiently as the man with the honking nose sat dangerously close to him, practically on his lap, ignoring the world around him, chomping his shmear-covered bagel like it was the last meal available to any and all animals on the dying planet. He couldn’t stand the sound in his ears but he learned to put up with it for the sake of saving his own sanity. No one else cared about his sanity so he may as well.
Every few seconds, his wings twitched and ruffled. It has been this way for nearly five years. Before then, he had full control and they behaved exactly how he wanted. Now, they ruled his life and kept him up all night. He was always tired, hoping he would develop a new narcoleptic habit that would knock him to the ground in the middle of an intersection. He daydreamed of the soft feathery concrete underneath his head, cars and pedestrians moving around him, shushing each other to not disturb the sleeping man baby.
The man with the honking nose finished his bagel and slurped down his coffee in one great sip. He shoved the paper cup and shmear-covered napkins and deli paper into the back left pocket of his cargo shorts. He smiled when he saw the twitching wings.
“Nice day for a flight,” he said and winked. He walked to the door and tripped on his shoelace, stumbling into the glass with his face, but managed to keep himself upright and laugh a honking laugh before disappearing into the outside world.
Nice day for a flight indeed, our hero mumbled to himself. He would spend the rest of the day being pulled around the city by his clipped wings. They were hungry for adventure, and they were stronger than him. All resistance was futile. He gave his balls a tug, stood up, and his wings twitched. He bent down and tied his own shoelaces, lest he slam his face into the glass door.