Awake!

Holden cracked da hard casing surrounding his face. A beam of light trickled into his tight cocoon. He reached out one arm and stretched it for the first time in two weeks, cranky joints snapping into place. He pulled out another arm, and then another. He blanked out a moment as blood rushed into his cramped limbs.

Pops wanted him to join da Flutters, the premier exhibition squad. In this effort he always pressed him to eat ‘n exercise on a regular basis. Pops always wanted him to eat the very tips of da plants ‘cause he said the nutrients were strongest out where the growth occurred.

Ma told him to focus on fashion. She said da ladies was far more interested in a dapper man dan a crazy acrobat, no matter how tough he be.

Holden never paid much mind to either of them. He always figured he could “flutter” or strut just fine for his purposes. He knew what the boys down in Mexico was all about. After a lifetime on the ground he was ready to earn his wings and fly. Who were his parents to tell him what to be anyhows? Didn’t he control his own life?

He stretched another leg out of his prison. He had never imagined that it would hurt so much. Everybody said it was pretty boring process, adulting. Pretty much you just sit there and time does da work. Sure it took patience and ya had to be well-fed, but one way or another, everybody grows up.

With all legs/arms accounted for he took another break. He felt strange, he was different now. Older. He could feel da strength in his limbs that hadn’t been there before. He remembered being warned that at this point you shouldn’t hurry too much or you risk losing everything. Nice and slow, he opened his wings.

They were striking. Brilliant streaks of orange and black blazed in da morning light. Even with the slow first opening of those wings he could feel his body shift slightly. Energy filled him greater dan anything dat he had imagined or dat his family and friends had told him.

He flapped his wings closed den open, closed den open again. With guns like these what dames could turn him down?  He could join da Flutters and get da girls and fly round da world no problem. Screw waiting around on the ground, he was ready to go!

He flapped faster and faster. The ground shrank beneath his feet as he began to soar. There was the grasses and shrubs of youth, so small from here. Da heck with Pops, Ma and Mexico, he was off to da moon! If da world were a clam he’d take a dozen. He fluttered, man did he flutter! Twirling faster and faster into da wide world nothing but blurring green mixed with blue sky, white clouds, and black asphalt.

Orange and black smeared green across high-velocity, shatterproof glass.