Carol Emshwiller - All of Us Can Almost...

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2024-11-23 0 0 33.05KB 8 页 5.9玖币

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All of Us Can Almost....

A Short Story

by Carol Emshwiller

… fly, that is. Of course lots of creatures can almost fly. But all of us are able to match any others of us,

wingspan to wingspan. Also to any other fliers. But though we match each other wing to wing, we can't

get more than inches off the ground. If that. But we're impressive. Our beaks look vicious. We could

pose for statues for the birds representing an empire. We could represent an army or a president. And

actually, we are the empire. We may not be able to fly, but we rule the skies. And most everything else

too.

Creatures come to us for advice on flying. They see us kick up dust and flap and stretch and are awed.

We croak out what we have to say in quacks. We tell them, "The sky is a highway. The sky is of our

time and recent. The sky is flat. It's blue because it's happy." They thank us with donations. That's how

we live.

The sound of our clacking beaks carries across the valley. It adds to our reputation as powerful—though

what good is it really? It's just noise.

Nothing said of us is true, but must we live by truths? Why not keep on living by our lies?

Soaring! Think of it! The stillness of it. Not even the sound of flapping. They say we once did that.

Perhaps we still can and just forgot how to begin. How make that first jump? How get the lift? But we

grew too large. We began to eat the things that fell, and lots of things fall.

I could leap off a cliff. Test myself. But I might become one of those things tumbling down. Even my own

kind would tear me apart.

Loosely … very loosely speaking, I do fly. My sleep is full of nothing but that. The joy of it.

But where's the joy in almost doing it? Flapping in circles. Making a great wind for nothing but a jump or

two. We don't even look good to ourselves.

I don't know what we're made for. It's neither sky nor water nor … especially not … the waddle of the

land. We can't sing. Actually, we can't do anything. Except look fierce.

Pigeons circle overhead. Meadowlarks sing. Geese and ducks, in Vs, do their seasonal things. We stay.

We have to. Winter storms come and we're still here. We puff up as much as we can and wrap our

wings around ourselves. Perhaps that's what our wings were for in the first place. We're designed merely

to shelter ourselves. Even our dreams of flying are yet more lies.

But none others are as strong as we are … at least none seem to be. We win with looks alone and a big

voice. We stand, assured and sure.

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Carol Emshwiller - All of Us Can Almost...

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