The Song of the Air Above

It is cold here. The air is thin and tastes of clouds.

The gusts of wind guide me, rustling through my feathers with a familiar tickle. It is both alarming and comforting, knowing that the closest thing to me is the air.

The air is the thing that knows me best, better than the brief warmth of Mother’s nest full of hatchlings, better than the bark of the trees that I have touched, better than the sunlight and the rain that has fallen on me. No, it is the air that leads me, that fills my wings, that brings me to New Home. It is the air that I trust above all.

I am new to this world and the things in it. The world that I have known, the world of the nest that held us as we hatchlings grew, the world of finding my flight in the Falling, that world is over. This world is full of cold, full to the brim with stars and clouds and silence. This world is full of aching wings and of haunting, open freedom. I am overflowing with a life that I have not known before.

We travel together, Mother and I. There are others with us, others I did not know until we began the Journey. We travel in silence, and I hear only the whistle of the wind and the sounds of my breath, familiar and fast, the sound of the air entering my lungs and leaving me, knowing me more deeply than I will ever know myself. I am losing myself in the air, in the cold, in the dim curve of the horizon skimmed with clouds. I am losing the weight of the world before.

The world before. Old Home. I remember with a shudder fighting my way free from the fluid and the unyielding shell. The helplessness of screaming for food, of not knowing when Mother would bring it. The chill of the air on my bare skin before my feathers grew in, my feathers which are proud and strong and the color of storm-clouds. I remember the warmth of the other hatchlings. We started as four. Four hatchlings, defenseless from the chill of the air, from the dangers of Old Home. Mother, being only one, could not protect us all.

Mother signals to me that we are heading Down. I am glad for the warmth as we descend, for the refreshing mist of clouds thick with coming rain rolling off my beak and my feathers. It is easier to breathe, but the air is heavy here. The world is heavy, I think. I wish to be light forever, but this cannot be. The world is heavy, but the world is where we eat and drink and sleep and nest. That is why we go Down.

From the safety of the cloud, the wind no longer whistles in my ear. I call out to Mother, my burning question muffled in the density of the mist.

“Is this New Home?”

“No,” she replies over her wing. “Just a Stop on the Journey.”

A Stop, I repeat to myself. I wonder what is waiting for me beneath the clouds. There is a sudden fear that grips me, and the memory of a dark night and a sharp claw and a great loss. A memory of the sudden chill of being alone. Mother told me that the world is not always like that, but I am not sure that I believe her. The world is heavy.

We continue our descent, and the clouds grow thicker and thicker until I am drenched in unfallen rain and it is hard to breathe the laden air. I realize that I cannot see Mother, and suddenly I cannot breathe at all. Keep flying, keep going Down, I tell myself. But the air is tight around me and my feathers are heavy, and I am forgetting what it means to be light. My heart pounds, my eyes fill with darkness and I am forgetting, forgetting, forgetting…

Just when I feel that I cannot continue, I break free from the cloud. I breathe, finally, looking frantically for Mother, and there she is, still going Down a short distance ahead of me, following the others. And past them, the world. The Stop. There is not much green here. I see leafless trees, their branches bared to the wind. There is water, a thin dark stream that winds among the trees, glinting here and there with the little light that peeks through the clouds. The grass is dead or dying and the air has a tight chill to it, unlike the freeing, ringing cold of the air above.

We descend to rest amongst the empty branches of the trees. We eat what little we can find: some surviving insects moving slowly in the chill, fallen grass-seeds that taste of stale earth. We drink and wash in the stream, its dark current glinting, smiling at us with the knowledge of death, of life, and of the indifference of time. I am glad to rest my wings, which have not stopped trembling since that moment in the cloud. But I do not want to stay here long, because the world is heavy.

Mother and I sit beside each other on the thin branch of a leafless oak, our bodies pressed together for warmth. Her heartbeat is fast and steady, like mine. I rest my head against her wing and remember.

There were four of us once, when I was almost to young to appreciate what it meant to be Together. The days were hot and full of stretching and climbing and crying out for food. Mother was never fast enough for us when there were four.

There was a morning when I woke and one was gone. The nest was roomier, but now had a slight chill to it that taught me of loss. Mother said one of us Fell too early. I was too young to really understand; I had no feathers yet and thought only of warmth and food. But now I understand, and I sometimes think of the cold of the ground on her bare skin, the height of the Fall, the terror of not having feathers for flight.

When she had only us three, Mother was careful. She told us to stay away from the Edge, to keep each other close. To keep quiet. But we were hungry and prideful of our new down feathers, and Mother was foraging, and the tree was listening. I was asleep when it happened, until the sharp strike of a claw against my back woke me. There was the grating of coarse fur on my beak as the creature left, taking two with him. And I was alone, all alone to wonder why I was left to live, and they were not.

When Mother came back that day, she said nothing. We spent that night pressed close to each other, unable to rest in the silence.

“Child, you should sleep,” Mother says, drawing me away from the memory. Her voice is filled with the sorrow of time and the song of the air above.

“Mother?”

“Yes?”

“What is New Home like?”

She is quiet for a long time. “In some ways, New Home is like Old Home. There will be trees and singing and sunlight. We will eat and drink and sleep and nest. But New Home will always be warm. The air will be light and fresh, and we will be happy.”

“And we will be together?” I ask, closing my eyes to picture it.

“And we will be together, we two.”

I smile at the thought, and drift into sleep.