I sit on the rail outside a building. A dull, golden orb glows overhead—shy, half-asleep. The proud goose-stepping on the wall and repeated, throaty coos are missing. The atmosphere’s ashen face is sullied by a dusty, suffocating haze. Grimy leaves of a lone tree, amidst the throttling network of bricked dwellings, are as still as the grave. I inhale a deep breath of smoke. Droopy wings, tail bobbing. It isn’t like before. Choking, the place reeks of despair.

A giant comes out and doesn’t shoo me away. Blinking my eyelids while cawing, I flap my wings without any lift. My burnt black wings confine me to the land. A few days ago, when I delved into the foul-smelling heap of leftover food and detritus of everyday life, a terrible irritation seized me, as if I was set ablaze. Consequently, my feathers fell like the season’s leaves, and the existing ones resembled the spikes of bottlebrush flowers.

A sudden tremor. A sound like a birdsong—a superior marking its territory—comes from the burly figure carrying a rectangular, vibrating glare. He mumbles into it in a gravelly voice. A cold sensation fills my bones, my head whirling. The last time this disorientation happened, my eggs cracked prematurely. Shaking, I undergo a bombing of pinpricks, an encumbering heaviness like a stone resting over my chest.

I see a winged cloud flocking to brighter verdure. Unexpectedly, I feel like cottonwood fluff. I leave the building and the nearby tree, soar up above the clouds, and then lose myself in the vast nothingness.