Monday, December 12, 2011

Escape

The boy stood on the balcony of his parents’ high-rise apartment, looking down at the city glimmering, swimming below, a stew of golden light and red and green and blue neon, with occasional glimmers from afar of the torches of the revolutionaries, occasional gunshots as the revolution made its slow progress, not affecting the boy and his family and those like them, the rich, the privileged.


As the boy stood there on the balcony, he knew. The knowledge came with his parents’ voices swirling and boiling out from the apartment, with the rising cacophony as they shouted at each other, screamed at each other, accused each other as the world burned around them.


The boy spread his wings and jumped. He flapped his wings and he flew. His stomach churning, he flew out over the sea of the city, out past the gleaming spires pricking the sky like silver pins, then out over the seas of rolling wheat, dull gold under the white of the moon. He came to a barn, and he flew into it and sat alone, and suddenly he knew that he was all alone. But it was better than hearing his parents scream.

2 comments:

Emily Cook said...

beautiful.
sad.

Would that I could gather all such children under my wings...

Ethan said...

Thanks. I understand the feeling.