Episode 4: The Fall

Recap:  My people took to the sky and tried to emulate birds as much as possible as the world was coming to an end.  As a youthful member of my clan I had the job of "gatherer", a potentially dangerous and thrilling job.  We were taught to avoid land and sea, so falling was never the plan.



The Fall

While flying and diving about I saw the billowing green of leaf for an evening meal but changed my trajectory towards the shiny gold wires I noticed in the distance floating on the waves near the forest I was gathering above.  The drafts agreed with me and we rushed together past the shore toward the glinting collection of thin wire that barely caught the morning’s light as whatever it was lilted and rolled with the tide.  As I approached I stretched down my right hand and used my left to slightly adjust the cords that held my fore sails.  As I had done a thousand times I let my hand graze the object to see if it was light enough to want to come with me.  With no resistance the golden wire had no weighty connection to the waves and easily began to soar away with me.  Then like a hatchling I foolishly gripped my hand closed and started to climb the drafts.  In one horrifying instant the catch became the captor.  The fine golden threads were only part of the item for a resistance of amazing weight ripped my hand behind me upending me and tangling the fore sails’ cord around my left thigh. Sky and sea spun in my eyes as I watched a huge solid piece of my doomed treasure show itself briefly above the waves, just long enough to pierce my main chute and strike my brow. I never saw exactly what was attached to the pretty wire.

Letting go of my foolish treasure came too late.  I grabbed cord and threw sail as I spun into the air away from my draft.  I careened into the sky, the waves becoming smaller and blurred as I briefly hoped that I had survived touching the poisoned and heavy water when I felt the last remnants of my draft leave me behind.  For one moment all of my sails and chutes hesitated then limply collapsed inward like a shriveled fruit as I began my fall.  I used every technique I knew and for one second the rushing air around me seemed to consider slowing my fall, then I smelled the water at my face before everything went black.

Coming Next: The Swimmers