The birds had not come in last night and now they would be lost.

Common birds! She spat twirling a small gold spoon in her coffee clattering nervously on the edge of the doll like cup.

So long years of sorrow, so long back breaking toil. The training, the binding of tiny claws the midnight dropper feedings. All of it for nothing. Now they would peck at trash and pretend to get excited when they heard the fog horns of a garbage trawl.

Why do I bother? She picked a tiny scar at the corner of her mouth and drank...

Backwards, triumphant, towering low over this once perfect field of brown and dusk.

held soft in the omnipresent rapture of breathing.

We are falling, steady. We are falling a little bit. We are falling into a mass dream, an illusion that is as good as reality for now. We are falling so slowly, so gently that it feels like we are floating. We are together and we are kidding ourselves. But it is noble and good and we are falling. What reality is greater than this? What is it we are here for? We are this: we are weight: we are what makes it possible to fall.

We are falling and it is enough.

It was the fall that surprised me most.

I guessed the weight and the distance. It is easy really once you think about it, I guess easy for me at least or at least it was easy, once.

I scrapped up the side of my leg and sometimes that takes longer to heal now that I am older, but being alone who cares really.
It is a good story to tell if anyone is listening.

It was the fall that surprised me most. It is never expected I suppose. One thinks that you will always be quick, cute, desirable. Always...