Lil-Angel78

“A bird. That’s what you’re like…A bird.”
He grinned, the mango sunlight drowning his face in a dreamy pool of afternoon sun.
She grinned, too, and answered him, her eyes lit with a smile:
“Oh…and might I ask, how did you get the inspiration for that?”

Slowly, he lifted his arm and pointed across the street to the sidewalk, where a dirty-looking pigeon was picking at some seeds on the sidewalk.
They burst out laughing.
“So I’m a pigeon. Okay, not exactly flattering.
-Since when am I flattering?”
He was still grinning. He always was, in fact, as if the tiny smile was printed upon his face.

Realizing this was a rhetorical question, she slowly picked her backpack up from the floor, fought with the zipper, fumbled around a bit, and pulled out a medium-sized red apple. It shone in the slanting bit of sunlight left on this monday afternoon.

She took a small bite of her apple, pensive, her eyes focused on a brown leaf on the gravel.

“So why a bird?”

He shifted into a more comfortable position. They were sitting on a high wall in the park next to the high school, his legs hanging from the side, hers crossed under her.

“Well…you’ve got like a free spirit…and stuff…
She lifted her eyebrows and glared at him.
-And stuff? Uninteresting people say things like “And stuff”. Elaborate. I want to understand why I remind you of the dirtiest pigeon in the city.

He laughed. It warmed her heart.

-Okay, well…you say what’s on your mind, and you don’t back away from things that, you know…scare you. You know? And you’ve got a free spirit, that’s why I said bird. Like you say what you want to say, you do what you have to do, and you…live more than others, I guess.”

She chewed on this for a moment, held her apple out to him. He took it in his right hand, bit into it. He chewed on that for a while.
“Not a very accurate comparison, she said, grinning.

“What makes you think, she asked, that anything scares me?
-I’ve watched horror movies with you, that’s how I know”

She looked at him, smiled. He smiled back. They both laughed. She wondered how much time they spent laughing every day. Probably more than the average person spent in a lifetime. Then, he did something unusual. He put the appple down next to him, and reached his hand out to her face, cupping her chin.

She felt her heart stir restlessly, and she closed her eyes to avoid tears from streaming, provoked by this sudden emotion.

“You’re a bird with broken wings, I think. When I was little I rescued a bird with broken wings. I put a band aid on his wing and fed him until he was strong enough to fly.
I think I can fix you too.”

Then, his hands moved away from her soft skin, and he grabbed the apple again, taking a bite.

The pigeon, lifting it’s bobbing head up to the sky, took one quick leap and began flying towards the sky. The sun had not yet faded away.

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