Flightless Plumpy

As I walked to the bus station Saturday morning, I saw a bird laying in the road, its wings splayed dispassionately about it. I started to turn my face away, feeling sadness for the little dove of mourning whose life had been rudely ended upon the concrete. A flash of movement caught my eye, and I looked in horror as it came to life, flopping hopelessly in an attempt to fly away. My stomach turned knowing there was nothing I could do for it. Were I back in Ohio, I might have known the number of someone to take it to, my mother or I could have tried to nurse it back to health. With my living situation and lack of time, I couldn't fathom trying to bring it home. I was nauseated at the thought of leaving it in pain. Its tiny eyes stared up at me in panic. It continued to flop pathetically, the movement a silent plea for pity. I considered snapping its neck, ending its pain would be a humane solution. As I stooped to pick it up, I could not bring myself to end him. I could feel the flutter of a heart beat in my hands and I moved to the side of the road, setting him under a bush instead. I silently wished him luck and moved away, leaving him to the mercy of time.

Sometimes I feel like my wings have been crippled as well. I have a sense of what it is to soar, to know the wind under my wings. But when I try to put my self aloft, it is as if I have forgotten how to work the muscles. The scent of altitude is maddening in my nostrils and yet I cannot satisfy the yearning. I know what I want to do, but the steps to get me there are vague and frustrating. Perhaps my wings have atrophied, wasted away from a lifetime of complacency and inaction. Now I am doomed to flap my meaty stumps in effigy of a wasted dream. Like the kakapo, a flightless plumpy not adapted to fend off predators, who when faced with danger will scamper up a tree and launch itself into the air only to find that it cannot indeed fly. Perhaps I am climbing my tree right now and before long will find myself falling through the void, unable to slow my descent, as I fall helplessly into the maw of my waiting demise.

I looked under the bush on the way home from work yesterday, hoping to gain some clue of the dove's fate. That there was no body confirmed that either he regained his senses and winged himself back to the blue skies or at the very least was given an end more natural than the undignified flap of feather on concrete.