Finally, the man stood up, spread his feeble arms like shriveled wings, and jumped, screaming, into vacant air. For a moment, he looked almost like a real bird on take-off, but real birds swoop and soar. They float. Fake birds fall straight like stones. At the bottom, he bounced and landed in the damp gully of the river that wound its way around the mountainside. In her hunger, the lioness considered picking on his remains, but she preferred her own kills. And she was repulsed by his unexpected act of self-destruction. There was no shame in curling up somewhere to die when the time came. You
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