Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 304

This week's picture prompt was created by hungarian born, Sarolta Ban. She doesn't give this a name, but it is located in the alterego category.  It's not the first time I've used one of her images. I used one on Week 28, and Week 24 . She has some exceptional images, worth checking out. 

Took a while but then this story arrived sometimes you have to follow your beliefs. Just say no to caged birds. 

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here. 

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.


Delight
I heard the carpull up. We’d been driving for a while, and I had no idea where they weretaking me. The box wasn’t very comfortable but it beat the cage. I heardshuffling and a car door open, then the box was jostled as they picked it up. Iheard them walk on crunchy ground for a while. Then the box was put on theground. I heard strange zipping sounds, and then more footsteps until the soundof them faded. I heard a car engine in the distance, then nothing. Silence.

I pushed up on the cardboard above me, notexpecting it to give, but it did. I opened the flaps with the tip of my wing,and pushed up, opening them out to their full wingspan. I hadn’t been able todo that in years.

The air was thick with fog, or was thatsmoke? I couldn’t be sure. I had little recollection of what fresh air smeltlike. I stepped out of the box and flexed my wings a few times. I hadn’t flownin at least a decade.

Cage life was torture for anyone withwings, but humans like to have you there to coo at you. They also expected you tobe grateful to have been caught in the first place and kept alone, trapped, andliving with the indignity of shitting where you eat. Some days they were lazyand let it get really smelly. All I could do when that happened was hide in thecorner and cover my face with my wing in shame. I would hear them talk about meas though I was some tiny toy. But mostly I was just an ornament.

They had clearly had enough of me, which iswhy they had dumped me here. The novelty had finally worn off, and as I hadn’tdied in the cage, they were now going to abandon me and force me to fend formyself in a hostile land.

I beat my wings a few times and hopped overto a rock. I needed to get above whatever was causing this fogginess and feelthe sun on my body.

I beat them again, expecting to feel tired,but instead I was exhilarated, my energy rising high. And with another hardbeat I rose using that energy, climbing higher and higher until the cloudsaround me began to brighten.

I broke through and got my first glimpse ofsunshine and sky in … I no longer knew how long, but since I was a baby. It wasmagical. I caught a thermal and glided out above the dense cloud, until I cameacross a gap that showed me the ground.

It was indeed smoke. I could see patches ofthe ground consumed by flame and others black from where it had passed.

I stayed high, it was easy up here, thewarm thermals keeping me buoyant, and not requiring too much wing strength.Then I spotted a flock ahead of me, and made my way towards them. They werewhite-winged like me.

I joined the tail end of their formation.The wind drag lessened and I felt I had found my place.

I soaked in the view of the sun glisteningon the smoky clouds and imagined water, large expanses of it. And somewhere inmy mind I knew that was where we were going, and I could see the route. I hopedmy wings would hold me up that long.

But soon the light was fading and theformation was descending, fortunately to an unburnt patch of land. I tried foran elegant landing but I stumbled a little. Folding my wings hurt after such along time expanded but it was a relief too. I joined them pecking at theground, and followed them towards a small stream. I placed my feet in the waterand squawked with delight. They joined in. And then I saw the movement in thewater and caught up the little fish in my mouth. I’d never experienced anythingso blissful.

Then as the light left the ground, wehuddled together, and I spotted the rings on their legs, too. I wasn’t the onlyone who had found freedom as the world burned.