Flight School: Prey

Kind Darkness

Do you know?

All birds seek shelter during the rain;

But an eagle avoids it by flying higher—above the clouds.

Sometimes, instead of being still and waiting for our troubles to go away,

Perhaps we should, instead,

do something to turn the tables

And change the game.

________________________

He remembered his mother. When she used to explain to him how birds learned to fly—that is, they didn't. There were no lessons; no 'flying 101' like those books she'd have about gardening but never get to the second page because the language was too heavy. He learned that nature gave no lessons and everything was somehow, already, within.

It made him wonder what was exactly was innate in humans that made them what they were. Did every living thing know that they would eventually deteriorate and die? Were they the only ones?

How did he come to know that he will die? It wasn't as though his mother had told him right in his face: Iolani, you will die. One day, you will.

He recalled how he had watched the baby finches fall from their nest in his backyard, pick themselves off the ground after fluttering around perfectly unsure of flight and the unfamiliar way in which they had to move their tiny wings.

He had observed the way in which the young birds would discover their affinity with the sky, or whatever it was that they'd come to fly with—the fall before the rise.

The fall before the rise.

*

Io turned to the instructor who he assumed would be the one teaching him the basics of how to fly (which he'd derived from the title 'flying instructor' pinned to the front of his jersey), wondering if all he needed to do was to push him down the very clock tower they were standing on.

It struck his heart like a moving tree on a night without wind. Dark and still.

Was it common sense? How birds learned to fly.

"Afternoon Marks. Mackinson here, but Coach will do just fine," the instructor nodded as he addressed the class brimming of excitement. Each were clad in attire specially designed for Winged during flight, streamlined and strangely warm.

Hands placed behind his back, Mackinson began to pace around and survey the students that gathered around him in a semi-circle—innocent by-standers who have come to take a look at what they deemed an interesting commotion, not knowing that soon they would be part of it.