January 5, 2020
There was a sort of succulent quality to the air, as though, were I to bite down on it, it would all come bursting forth at once. Dribble down my chin. Stain my shirt. It would be sweet, almost saccharine. It would beg for a pinch of salt to quell all that sweetness.
I didn’t know whether or not I’d be able to stomach it, honestly. I was dizzy. I was apart from myself. Above, and beside. I was looking down at myself. Were I to do so, to bite into time itself, I would surely overflow.
Was overflowing, I realized. Was bending forward at the waist where I was sitting. Those black choir chairs were comfortable, but made you sit up straight, so I couldn’t slouch. I was bending forward, resting my elbows on my knees, and then bowing my head, bowing further.
I was overflowing, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. We weren’t singing, the basses, we were watching the altos rehears a part, so it wasn’t too far out of the ordinary for me to be hunched over, breathing shallow, watching myself from above.
I was overflowing, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Hunched over, breathing shallow, and watching from a few feet up, a few feet to the right, so that I could see my shirt tear even as I felt it against my back. I was so thin, then. So thin.
I was overflowing, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I watched my shirt tear, and my skin follow. I watched it split along my spine and peel back. It was bloodless, but not painless. The feeling of those wings, newborn and weak, slipping from the wound was raw.
I was overflowing, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I watched the wings stretch and extend from the wound on my back. “Aha,” I thought. “This is it. This is finally it. It’s finally happening. I am becoming something greater, and here I am, so unprepared!”
I was overflowing, though, not transforming, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. The growth did not stop at wings. An eye. A beak. The graceful curve of a head. Plumage.
“No, this isn’t it.” I panicked, and could think of nothing else but to apologize. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
The bird cocked its head as it climbed free of my back and perched on my shoulder. It cared not for apologies. Why would it?
Another pair of wings followed.
Another.
Another.
My hands were buried in my hair, I could see - barely - through the forest of pencil-thin legs crowding my shoulders, my neck, my head. Their weight had forced my shoulders down until my head was nearly between my knees.
We were singing now, and I was silent. How could I sing, when all I could do was beg silently for forgiveness? How could I sing with the weight of a dozen crows slowly crushing me into my seat? How could I sing when I was overflowing? There was nothing I could do to stop it
Chaos. The director stopped the choir, and as one, the flock lifted off. The weight was lifted off my back. The cacophony filled the air. I was borne up through the air by the birds. The birds were splitting, multiplying, avian mitosis. I was borne up, up. Up.
I was told afterward that my body stumbled, unthinking along the row and toward the double doors, that the director had sneered, “It sure would be nice if we had all our singers here today.” I was told that folks defended me, saying I was sick, I was pale, I was feverish.
I don’t know, I wasn’t there. I was above the Flatirons. I was beyond terror. I was beyond joy. I was beyond sensation, beyond any emotion except for that bottomless, black guilt. Sticky. Tar-like. Bitter. The flock numbered in the thousands, and still we flew up.
The blue of the sky became white, blinded, became black, and I was sitting in the hallway. I was with my body again. I was sobbing. A teacher stared. Students gave me a wide berth.
I cleaned myself up. I went back to choir. What else could I do?
A bird had plucked something from me. Something precious. Something unknowable. Something important and integral. Something hard. Something emerald and glassy. Before the white of the sky overtook me, I saw it in its beak.
The caw it gave as my vision left me and my ears filled with static was…triumphant? No, not quite. Triumph implies that the birds could do anything but succeed. In that sound was inevitability.
After school, *** and I tramped through the ‘mini-forest’ and, impelled by something of the avian within, I collected five sticks.
They had to be as straight as possible.
They had to be balanced as close to the middle as possible.
They had to be the same length without me breaking them.
They had to have been from different trees.
They had to have fallen more than a year prior.
When I got home, I lay them in a row, asked my question, and, one by one, broke them in half.
What had I lost?
Why does memory stain you with that black, tarry guilt?
I had forgotten about the birds until recently, but every time I feel that ecstasy — that ekstasis — I am pitch. I am tar. I am sticky with apology. I am the living embodiment of “I’m sorry”.