All that I have previously known is unknown. My world is transformed and all my flock disappeared. I am alone in this land now strange to me.
***
After two days I have ventured from my nest, my body aching for food though my spirit is numb. Food is plentiful; the island is devoid of all animal life, including predators. I gorge myself while strange colors assault me from the sky and the ground itself. Night comes quickly and I sleep, taking shelter in one of the many emptied nests.
***
I awake alert and explore, but find only more mysteries. All life save my own has vanished. Not even a bug shares the ground with me. The hills are stripped bare of vegetation save some scraggly strands of bushes scattered along the edges. These garish and smooth hills make for fast movement, but this only brings me despair as I find the entire island is transformed.
***
While the plentiful food is keeping my body strong, I fear my mind may be weakening. Some mornings I wake to an island of strange colors unlike those of the day before. Then again perhaps this is the normal way of this new world.
***
I am faster now than the fastest of my vanished flock. An easterly wind blows across the hills, giving my wings a constant lift. My feathers are worn smooth from sliding so quickly across the land.
***
All my days are days spent sliding and gliding. I skip over hills as my kind has only ever dreamed of doing. It exhausts my body and empties my mind of all else - only this keeps my spirit from slipping away each night.
***
I HAVE TOUCHED THE CLOUDS!!!
***
I have circled this island endlessly these weeks, seeing it as never before - as if I were a cloud watching over the hills and valleys. But my solitude blots out the exhilaration I first felt and threatens to break me. Tomorrow I will fly from the cliffs over the sea, to another land on the horizon. I know not what strange creatures await, or if I will fall into the sea and sink to my death below the waves. But if I stay here I will perish from being alone in this tiny world.
***
The sea did not claim me, but this new island offers no escape from the nightmare my world has become. All around are strange colors assaulting my senses, and no life stirs; no flock is found. The hills are harsher, the flying more challenging, but I fly every day until darkness falls. Sometimes I let sleep take me from the sky, but instinct prevails and when I awake it is always in a found nest though I have no memory of seeking shelter.
***
After many days I have moved to a third island, and a fourth. These steep valleys confound me but I am flying higher than ever before. Still, no signs of a flock.
***
Six islands, all different, all the same. Desolate. Lonely. Always, another on the horizon to shine forth hope upon my tortured soul.
***
Nine islands. Something forces me to go on; strong winds prevent me from throwing myself into the sea.
***
I have finally made sense of it. My flock - my world - continues as it ever was. It is only I who have vanished from that realm, to reappear in this hellish land. I know not why I have been damned to this eternal madness. I only know flying, and striped lands and glowing skies. And the next island. And the next. And the next.
******
16 May 2011
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