My beauty is beyond denial. My grace and elegance beyond compare. I do not know how I came to be here, sitting upon this desert of water. I awoke, some fate or amnesia restarting my life from this point. I recall nothing else, ever.
Completely alone, on a calm day, I look down for fish and refocus on my reflection. No Narcissus, but the truth is there in radiant white, shadowed jet eyes and vivid beak, an amber complement of the blue sky. Oh, there are fish beyond all needs. My sole source of nutrition and moisture in this saline place.
I flew once for a whole day, found nothing but flat ocean. This must be the world.
I see others, but they are not like me. Gull and Albatross occasionally pass. Once there was a vee of birds flying high. Why or to where I do not know. I flew up, climbing, climbing to join them but they were geese, their resemblance to me fading as I approached. So I descended again.
Maybe I could have stayed with them, some kind of company though not that which would satisfy my inner yearning, the need I cannot describe, that lonely vacuum that could only be filled by one like me.
I flew once on a becalmed day just above the surface and looked down, my reflection almost like another. I dove down to meet this other, but just a water mirage, no soft contact only a clumsy splash. A momentary, unseen slippage of elegance.
I don’t know where she came from. One morning I was awoken by a gentle touch that was not a lapping wave. Another trick of reflection perhaps?
I advanced, gliding to contact the apparition moving slowly with few strokes of cautious feet beneath the surface. For the first time it did not mimic me but sat steady. Mutually venturing, our necks entwined. This was the other I, the shape of the void in my heart. She dipped and emerged with a fish. I accepted the silver gift.
I didn’t want to sleep that night for fear she would be gone when I awoke. So I stayed awake, a white guardian watching in the moonlight, as she rested her neck between her wings, as we do.
The next morning she gave me a small peck, playful. She flew up. I was filled with dread, she was leaving. I stretched wings and followed, besotted. She dropped again to the surface as if to emphasise that she was not running away and I rejoined her. This she did several times, each one a little longer, until she stayed up, and did not descend again.
We flew for days. I could not divine her purpose, I only wanted to stay with her. On the third day, the scent in the air changed. Other birds I had not seen before flew around us in the air. And, as the sun began to set, I could see a ribbon of yellow stars on the sea and I followed amazed as they slipped below me. She had taken me above the stars, a place I had never been, the sea below now a mass of greens oranges and browns and grey crystal forms.
We descended, toward what seemed a small region of the old sea. Landing, leaving long trails as our feet dragged in the water. High unfamiliar forms that were not waves lined this area. She dipped her beak and did not emerge with a fish but swallowed. I dipped also. The water was different, no salt, magical.
She drank and I drank with her.
Completely alone, on a calm day, I look down for fish and refocus on my reflection. No Narcissus, but the truth is there in radiant white, shadowed jet eyes and vivid beak, an amber complement of the blue sky. Oh, there are fish beyond all needs. My sole source of nutrition and moisture in this saline place.
I flew once for a whole day, found nothing but flat ocean. This must be the world.
I see others, but they are not like me. Gull and Albatross occasionally pass. Once there was a vee of birds flying high. Why or to where I do not know. I flew up, climbing, climbing to join them but they were geese, their resemblance to me fading as I approached. So I descended again.
Maybe I could have stayed with them, some kind of company though not that which would satisfy my inner yearning, the need I cannot describe, that lonely vacuum that could only be filled by one like me.
I flew once on a becalmed day just above the surface and looked down, my reflection almost like another. I dove down to meet this other, but just a water mirage, no soft contact only a clumsy splash. A momentary, unseen slippage of elegance.
I don’t know where she came from. One morning I was awoken by a gentle touch that was not a lapping wave. Another trick of reflection perhaps?
I advanced, gliding to contact the apparition moving slowly with few strokes of cautious feet beneath the surface. For the first time it did not mimic me but sat steady. Mutually venturing, our necks entwined. This was the other I, the shape of the void in my heart. She dipped and emerged with a fish. I accepted the silver gift.
I didn’t want to sleep that night for fear she would be gone when I awoke. So I stayed awake, a white guardian watching in the moonlight, as she rested her neck between her wings, as we do.
The next morning she gave me a small peck, playful. She flew up. I was filled with dread, she was leaving. I stretched wings and followed, besotted. She dropped again to the surface as if to emphasise that she was not running away and I rejoined her. This she did several times, each one a little longer, until she stayed up, and did not descend again.
We flew for days. I could not divine her purpose, I only wanted to stay with her. On the third day, the scent in the air changed. Other birds I had not seen before flew around us in the air. And, as the sun began to set, I could see a ribbon of yellow stars on the sea and I followed amazed as they slipped below me. She had taken me above the stars, a place I had never been, the sea below now a mass of greens oranges and browns and grey crystal forms.
We descended, toward what seemed a small region of the old sea. Landing, leaving long trails as our feet dragged in the water. High unfamiliar forms that were not waves lined this area. She dipped her beak and did not emerge with a fish but swallowed. I dipped also. The water was different, no salt, magical.
She drank and I drank with her.