Flight School: Prey

Caged Freedom

Sometimes, we look at caged birds and feel a strange sadness despite the beauty of its song. We as humans who think that it is wrong. And yet as humans we think that if it were never caged, we would have never gotten to hear it's singing voice here.

The caged bird sings,

ribbed cage,

cage as ribs

heart in rage

caged bird sings,

Sings songs of the heart.

How and why

Does the caged bird sing

Desperate in joy?

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Cage;

An enclosure that serves the purpose of restraining or containing what is within

An enclosure that serves the purpose of protecting or maintaining what is within

Two vastly different concepts in a single word

For when things cannot escape;

There is nothing that can enter also.

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What drew him towards the darkness, Iolani Tori knew not—only, that he was drawn.

"Mr. Tori, the curfew is approaching! Where might you be heading at such an hour?" Professor Callaghan asked politely, glasses skewed from the impact.

"I'm sorry sir! Well, I...wasn't going anywhere," I don't have anywhere to go, you see. "I've completed the map of constellations. So...I can leave, right?"

"Is that so?" The professor was pleased, elegant fingers adjusting the frames on the bridge of his nose. "Well done. Then, I advise you not to run in the hallway! It is very dangerous to do so. Please return to your dormitory—as soon as possible, if I may add."

Io found himself wondering if he belonged there, if anywhere, at all. What was it like to belong?

His mind drifted towards fields of his village, the lakes and the woods; the breeze that he could feel as long as he reached past the open window. But even then, there was no belonging. It was vaguely unsettling now that he had unveiled this very part of himself he'd never noticed.