The house was an enor­mous wooden affair, filled with lofts and lad­ders at vary­ing lev­els. There was fam­ily there, but the adults (aunts, uncles, par­ents, et al) stayed only on the ground floor, never ven­tur­ing up past the first loft. There were five chil­dren, I was one, and we climbed to the top of the high­est plat­form and stood at the glass­less win­dow that faced outside.

One dark-haired boy (I thought of him as “cousin”, but did not know his name) stood clos­est, and turn­ing to us with a mis­cheivous grin said “I’m going to play ‘Mor­tle’.” The rest of the chil­dren gasped, and I felt apprehensive,and though the name of the game wasn’t famil­iar, I knew I had played it before.

My bare feet tapped impa­tiently on the wood of the loft, and I thought “I bet he won’t. They’ll stop him, they always do when we play this.”

The other chil­dren crowded closer, and I pulled the youngest back, a red-headed boy of four, and sent him to fetch me some­thing so that he wouldn’t see and tattle.

The dark-haired boy said “Ready? Here I go!” and leapt onto the slide that led from the win­dow to the ground, far below. He slid for­ever as we watched, com­ing to rest on the ground yards from the house. He then ran back towards us and flew up to the win­dow on tiny trans­par­ent wings the had sprung from his back. We all yelled deri­sively as soon as we saw that, say­ing things like “Cheat! You can’t use your wings in Mor­tle!!”. I haugh­tily stepped for­ward and handed him my crum­pled wings that I had taken from my pocket, and said “Here. I’ll show you.” I crept to the edge of the win­dow, and then flung myself out onto the slide. I felt heavy and leaden, and came to rest just short of the end of the slide. I ran back to the house, and then passed the adults care­fully as I tried to climb back up with the rest of the kids.

“Bri­anna, where are your wings?” my mother asked in a warn­ing tone. I told her that they had were itch­ing, so I had given them to my cousin to try and trade. The adults all laughed, and began rem­i­nisc­ing. “John we traded once, didn’t we? My wings were too tiny to hold you up!” I left them laugh­ing with nos­tal­gia an resumed my place next to the rest of the kids. They all asked me how it was, and I told them “Awful. You feel all heavy and clumsy. I much pre­fer using my wings, even if it is for babies.” They agreed, and then a few kids climbed to the sill them­selves. “One, two, three– ” They jumped, and flew in a race to the clos­est tree and back. The dark haired boy won, and when I asked him where my wings were, he said “I think I dropped them dur­ing the race.” I felt a sick sense of loss, and crept again past the adults on my way out­side to find my wings. As I passed through the door, I heard my mother say, “Hon­estly, I don’t under­stand this fas­ci­na­tion with games like “Mor­tle” and try­ing to be allowed to go out with­out wings. You think they’d try and enjoy them as long as they could. They only have them until they are fif­teen, then they’re mor­tal, just like the rest of us.” The sky above me was filled with the shouts and laugh­ter of fly­ing chil­dren as I inched mis­er­ably across the ground, try­ing to recover my wings. I didn’t find them before I woke up.
B R I A N N A Â P R I V E T T
is the sole occu­pant at brianna.org, and tried fly­ing once with­out the aid of an air­plane. She lived to tell the tale, though she’s seri­ously doubted the power of think­ing ‘happy thoughts’ ever since. If she’s not injur­ing her­self in one dreamy pur­suit after another, she’s prob­a­bly check­ing her email. She likes con­tact with the Out­side, on occa­sion, so drop her a line.