Chris Pourteau - Tails of the Apocalypse

But I never did.

Every time I stretched out my wings, the memory of my fall flashed before my eyes. Maybe that’s why no chick recovers from a fall. It’s the haunting memory of the ground spinning up toward you. It paralyzed me. I longed to leap from that window, to return to my nest. I didn’t belong with these humans. I belonged up there with the condors. And yet I couldn’t make that leap. No matter how many times the boy would tell me I could fly, I just couldn’t do it. The thought of falling again terrified me.

Oddly enough, the girl was experiencing the same thing. Her father would pick her up and make her stand, gently holding her against his side. He’d tell her how she’d walked for a long time before she got sick. How her legs had forgotten how to walk, but that if she tried hard, they would remember again.

The boy wasn’t as sweet. He would snarl that if she didn’t start walking again, they’d chop off her legs and force her to get fake ones. I’d seen humans like that, not in this family, but in other groups that lived in the same building. They had legs made of rods and wires. I took the boy to mean that his sister was going to be forced to get legs like that, too.

But no matter what they’d tell her, the girl couldn’t walk. Or wouldn’t. Just like I couldn’t fly.

Then one day they took us outside. And that’s when everything changed.

It was a nippy, fall morning. The leaves were changing colors, and stripes of gold mottled the sea of green sprawling beyond the river.

The boy hooded me. It was something new to me, and I didn’t like it. But then he pressed a button under my right wing and everything went dark. The boy could deactivate me just like that, with a flick of his fingers. They all had buttons like that, only humans carry them at the backs of their heads. The next thing I remember is waking up to the sound of rushing water.

The air was different. It smelled crisp, tinged with the scent of leaves and river moss. And then there was this strong odor, sweet and rotten at the same time. I could feel the ground moving beneath me.

The boy unhooded me. I swayed forward, then closed my talons around his gloved hand and regained my balance. He was holding me while sitting on the back of a horse, a beautiful creature I’d only seen from my perch on the windowsill. I’d observed these animals run along the river with the same elegance and power as the condors, only on the ground instead of in the sky. And now, for the first time, I took in their strong scent.

The father and girl were there too, mounted on a second horse. The girl was riding in front of the father, clasping his sleeves as he held the reins.

“Are you ready?” the boy asked, holding his gloved hand in the air and the reins in his other. When the father replied with a nod, the boy kicked the horse and prompted it to a fast gallop.

I squawked and tilted forward, my talons digging into his glove. The memories of my fall overwhelmed me. Wind whipped my feathers and fear pounded in my veins. The horse ran along the riverbank, the rhythmic beating of its hooves so like the hammering inside my chest. The boy held up his hand and told me to spread my wings. I obeyed. It was instinct.

“You can do it,” the boy yelled. “You can take off now!”

But I couldn’t. My wings were frozen, my talons clutching the leather of his glove. I was petrified.

The boy pulled up hard and stopped the horse. The second horse swept by us, and just as it ran by, the father let go of the reins, picked up the girl, and propped her up on his shoulders. The girl cried out, but it wasn’t a frightened scream. It was joyous! She was having fun! Then the father reined the horse around and came running back toward us.

“Now, Akaela,” the father yelled. “You’ve got to do it now!”

He clasped her hands and lifted the girl, her useless legs dangling behind his back. The horse ran faster at us, sprays of sand arching from under its thundering hooves. The father cried out again, and something popped out from the girl’s back.

All of her shirts had an opening at the back, a horizontal flap a couple of inches beneath her shoulder blades. Now I could see why. Rods came out of her back, extending and unfolding just like wings. A canopy stretched between them, and as it opened, it caught the wind and lifted the girl. The father held her hands, but her weight was no longer borne by his arms. The wind was carrying her along like an invisible hand holding her. The girl lifted her legs until they were no longer dangling, her body straight and parallel to the canopy now.

So she could move her legs.

The girl started laughing. Both the father and the boy cheered her on, shouting, “Fly, Akaela, fly!” When the father let go of her hands, the wind picked her up and she took off. She shifted her body, tilting the frame, and glided over the river, stretching out her arms and grinning from ear to ear.

She was so happy, it made my heart melt. She, too, now could fly. Like all brown falcons. Like the condors.

No, it wasn’t an elegant flight. It was clumsy and bumpy. Once more, the father reined the horse around and ran to fetch her before she dropped into the water. But it was her first flight. And my, did that make her happy.

I envied her.

I wondered how condors learned to fly. They too must’ve looked clumsy and totally out of their element when they first took off. And yet, those I’d seen from my nest were so graceful. I raised my eyes and there they were, their black silhouettes ever-present against the daytime sky.

“It’s your turn, Kael,” the boy said. I felt jittery with fear, giddy with anticipation. But if the girl could fly, then I knew I could do it, too. Her legs had been motionless until the minute her canopy swelled. That’s when she realized she could move them, that she could raise them high so her glide would pick up speed. It’s an instinct we birds know well, but sometimes you’ve got to teach your body those instincts all over again. And if a human could do it…

The boy yelled, kicked the horse’s flanks, and off we went. My talons squeezed his glove again. I dipped my head forward. Speed made my blood pump faster.

You can do it, Kael. You can do it .

I stretched my wings. I could feel the pull in them, the wind lifting me. All I had to do was open my talons and let go. It was in my head, though.

The fear.

The fall.

My heart wanted to fly, yet my head wouldn’t let it.

Then the boy did the unthinkable. He slid his hand out of the glove. And there I went, me, my stretched wings, and the glove still clutched between my talons.

It was a fantastic feeling.

Liberating.

Inebriating.

Terrifying.

And it lasted two seconds before I tilted my wings too much and almost slammed into a tree. But it was done. The boy had unlocked my wings by letting me go.

On our next attempt, he never let go of the glove.

I did.

I flapped and took off, found the thermal—the column of hot air rising up from the ground—and rode it like I’d been doing it all my life. Like the humans rode their horses. I flew over the river and above the forest, my eyes feasting on the landscape sprawling below. I skipped across the scents on the air, and they lifted me, drawing me forward. Herons took off from the water as I swerved by them. I saw the waterfalls in the distance and flapped my wings until I found the perfect currents that took me right over them. I dipped in the cloud of sprays rising from the water.

I felt strong, I felt alive.

I could finally fly.

I wanted to tell the world. No, not the world. I wanted to tell the condors .

So I left the waterfalls and rode the thermals back to the river. I saw the boy, the father, and the girl running with their horses at full gallop along the bank. They waved at me and cheered me on. They didn’t say, “Come back.” Instead, they yelled, “Look at you, Kael. You can fly now!”