Aeroplanes

A 13 year old girl grows wings. This is what happens.

I feel sorry for people in aeroplanes. There they are in a flying tin can with broken air conditioners and other smelly, rude, disgusting people to deal with. The only source of freedom is the scratched tiny Perspex window that leads to another world entirely. But that’s not the same. Everyone knows it’s not the same. You can only see it: that other world. You can’t feel it or touch it or smell it or taste it. Its just there. So close yet so far away.

Unlike me of course: I am that other world. I surf the clouds and ride the wind. I feel the intense heat of the inferno above me and the damp cool of the clouds below me. The air is so thin up there it feels like silk on your skin, hair and feathers. It’s heaven. It’s sheer heaven. It’s not the kind of heaven that people dream about. There are no angels (if you don’t count me), not every whim of yours is served to and it certainly isn’t safe. But I love it. I love it more than anything. The best thing is you are completely alone. No one, no one, is up there.

***

Extract from the Weekly Star, June 2008

GIRL OF 13 GROWS WINGS!

The impossible has happened. A yet unnamed girl has grown two wings over the course of 2 months. The girl (or the new nick name Birdie) has two very large and very real wings stuck on her back permanently. Scientists are saying that Birdie is another species of human and there is a possibility she will threaten our own. From this statement there were reactions of anger from the general public, “It should be put in a cage,” said truck driver Barry Walters, “It should be locked up.” Jenny Talbot a waitress said, “She shouldn’t be allowed out in society. She should be sent somewhere special.” Very different views are being taken from the church. The Archbishop of Canterbury said, “It is a sign from God that he hasn’t given up on us. Birdie is an angel, no doubt about it and she is here to save us all…”

***

Let’s get this straight; I don’t know anything about God. He hasn’t come to me in my dreams before you ask. He hasn’t sent me to give some divine message. Who do you think I am? God’s holy secretary? His divine answering machine? I don’t know any heavenly messages. I am not here to save humanity. I wouldn’t even know where to start. Sorry to burst your bubble.

I don’t want to wipe out the rest of humanity. I have never planned to do so and probably never will. Neither am I an animal. Well not much of one. I still talk, I still eat with a knife and fork and I still dress in clothes. I haven’t suddenly turned into a Neanderthal incapable of normal speech. I am just a human girl with stuff added on. I am nothing special. Normal. Nothing strange here. So stop staring. Just stop.

***

August 08 2008, 1:46 pm. La Dolce Vita Restaurant Interior

Mara Munroe and Caroline Munroe enter through the front doors of the La Dolce Vita Restaurant. The fellow diners look up and stare at the youngest of the pair. Mara Munroe instantly looks down, her face flushing as she tightens her wings in closer to her spine. Caroline Munroe raises her chin and says loudly, “Don’t you all have something better to do than to stare at my daughter?” The diners look away, ashamed for staring at the disabled girl. Mara Munroe raises her head again and appears to take a deep breath as the waiter shows them to their table.

***

“So tell me Munroe. Do you lay eggs?”

Ignorethemignorethemignorethemignorethemignorethem.

“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue? I’m just asking you a simple question. Or have your brains been replaced by feathers?”

Ignorethemignorethemignorethemignorethemignorethem.

“Answer me you freak!”

Ignorethemignorethemignorethemignorethemignorethem.

Mandy Linden grabbed my shoulders and shoved me into the arms of Karl Brown, who shoved me into George Smith. “She doesn’t weigh of anything!” Smith leered, his foul breath snagging on my nose. Images of x-rays flashed in my mind, doctors telling me they were now porous, like bird bones. “Makes you light. Easier for flight, your muscles have even changed.” I barely weighed 6 stone…

Ignorethemignorethemignorethemignorethemignorethem.

Mandy’s acrylic nails dug into the flesh of my cheeks, making me look into her minefield face. “So tell me. Do you lay eggs?”

I was expelled for what I did next. Mandy was in hospital for 2 months. She was covered in scratches from head to toe. And bruises. And maybe a few broken bones. And some internal bleeding. Its not like I meant to. I didn’t know what I was doing or I was that strong. Mind you, I do have to carry my weight, and more, in flight. I guess it gives me some strength.

But no one else seemed to understand. The Headmaster, a thin reedy man with a nose that always had a drip at the end of it, glowered at me when he told me that ‘my kind’ wasn’t welcome in his school. Even though I am the only one of ‘my kind’. He called my mum, asked her to pick me up.

I just remember standing there, at the front gate of the school. My things gathered around me like dejected rubbish bags. I could see through the windows, the taunting round faces of children who were glad they weren’t me.

I tried hard not to cry, I really did. The salt water leaked out anyway, creating hot humiliated rivers on my cheeks.

The world seemed to shift. The sky became this yawning expanse of endless space. It stretched across and above me: the clouds swirled calmly across it, creating patterns of white and grey in that expanse of blue. The sun shone, staining the twilight sky red, as if someone had swiped at it with a bloody hand. The sky was grey and blue and gold and pink and white and silver and orange and red and yellow and empty. My fingers loosened on my bags and I heard the thuds as they dropped to the pockmarked ground. Unconsciously my slate grey wings unfurled. I breathed deep, feeling as though gravity was relinquishing its clawed hold on me. 

While other people’s feet remain stitched to the ground I can do whatever the heck I want.  I’m the girl with wings and it doesn’t matter what people say.

***

Extract from the Weekly Star, October 2008

BIRDIE DISAPPEARS!

Birdie, the girl with feathers, went missing last week from her school in Cheshire. She was last seen in front of her school after being expelled for beating up another pupil. The police and her mother appealed to the public. “Please, if you see her, call the police. She has auburn hair, green eyes, quite small and dark grey wings. She might have headed somewhere remote but please call in if you have any information. She is still just a child.”

The news evoked different reactions from the general public. “I’m glad she’s gone,” said a local, “It ain’t right, a kid like that. Ain’t natural innit?”

“Poor child,” said her teacher, “I don’t blame her for running away. She was a quiet kid but good. She’d never hurt anyone. I guess it just got too much for her.”

When asked to comment her mother replied, “She’s still my little girl. Doesn’t matter if she grew tentacles or started to bark instead of talk. She’s my child, and I love her all the same, even if everyone else is going to be narrow-minded and petty around her. What happened to her made me realise how cruel humanity can be to those who don’t conform. We should all be ashamed of ourselves. We made a 13-year-old runaway from her only home. What does that say about us?”

Author's Note

Little experiment of mine, just wondering how it would turn out.

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

I think it turned out fantastic. Many of us have wished for wings (me included) that would carry us away from the maddening crowd to places quiet and serene. You're a very fine story-teller, Blue Faerie, and you write with excellent skill.