Entry #60

Metamorphosis
by Andrea Peck


I don’t know why I did it. It still doesn’t make sense. All I remember is the binding feeling of suffocation. The gelatinous smell. I have a vague idea of the days changing into nights, the slowing of light and a diaphanous warmth at times. I have images of sound that run through my mind. Birds? The soft scuttling of animals on trees? I remember the wind the most. The wheezing sound as it picked up and the cool disinterest as it died and paused before starting again. I remember the depth of fear that I felt, in the dark, the wind blowing, as I hung, from that branch in the clearing. Now, I think I would have chosen a more secluded place. Somewhere more protected, because it is that fear that stays with me as I remember those days that I held on with my own tensile strength and a will that I did not know I would need.

I miss the truncated dependability of my legs. My body, resolute, took me where I wanted to be. Sometimes I imagine I am myself again. I feel heat radiate from the earth and sense the moist green curve of my body. Now, I move with a drunken fluttering that reflects the indecision that has taken over my stalwart intentions and it is the infernal wind that has the last say as it lifts my wings, new and ungainly, on flights of its choosing.