After destroying the helicopter, the winged man flew with me for miles. I was glad for the cover of night and his silent presence. It was hard to think straight. On top of this, my shoulders and back muscles ached from pumping my wings. Yet I didn’t want to land. I glanced at him every so often. He flew so effortlessly, barely needing to flap his huge wings. He was slightly ahead of me, leading the way.
Nevertheless, as soon as the blackness of the ocean came into sight, he looked at me. I looked at him and then looked away, unable to withstand his piercing stare. My heart was suddenly pounding hard. He seemed human, yet how could he be? There was something so steady about him, so even. Again I wondered how Tower 7 had captured and imprisoned him and why. Moments later, I looked back. He was still watching me.
“What?” I finally asked. “What is it?”
He looked ahead. The ocean opened up into darkness only a few miles away. I could see the lights of a large ship on the water. A luxury liner? He pointed a long finger straight ahead. I wasn’t sure if he meant the ship, the ocean, or even one of the buildings.
He shot away from me abruptly and did a one-hundred-eighty degree turn. Then he flew off, back toward the city. So fast. I couldn’t possibly follow him. I certainly couldn’t maneuver myself like that. Not yet. No goodbye, no words of wisdom. I was alone, again. I flew on.
Minutes later, I was flying above the submerged part of the city. The tops of once majestic, now wobbly skyscrapers peeked above the dark, slow-moving water like trees in a swamp. I’d read that a species of nocturnal dog-sized rats lived in the portions of the building right above the water, and they fed on fish. They were probably out now, fishing the shallows.
I’d read that these buildings were inhabited by the poor and illegal. Hardworking people who commuted to the city using boat services provided by New York’s government. I landed on top of one of the taller buildings beneath a dim light post. A baby cried nearby and someone laughed. I smelled the spicy aroma of someone cooking with a lot of curry. There was a swimming pool here but it was empty and filthy now. Beside it, plastic chairs were pushed around a rusty steel table. I imagined men sitting in the chairs as they smoked cigars and played cards and cursed and laughed. Friends just being friends, even in their poverty. No Big Eye with guns and scalpels and portables.
Several pigeons standing near the table and chairs looked at me, their heads cocked to the side. Then they went about their business of eating seeds scattered on the ground. I smiled. I had never seen these birds up close. I watched them for a moment. They strutted about but stayed close to each other, almost unconsciously. I liked the way they cooed. Clearly, someone else must have liked the birds, too. Why else would anyone scatter seeds here?
It had been hours since I’d eaten the doro wat, and I’d flown miles, yet my belly felt full. I sat down on concrete ground, feeling the breeze against my exposed back and folded feathers. My back was dry. The bleeding had stopped; the blood had dried. I looked at my softly glowing hands and the wooden box I held in them. A black pigeon with grey speckled wings walked up to me and cocked its head curiously.
“I don’t know what it is,” I told it. The pigeon cautiously came closer, stepping a few paces to the left as it did so. I could have sworn it was looking at my wings with its beady brown eyes. I laughed. “I don’t really know what I am, either. What do you think?” The bird just stared at me. Then in the forefront of my mind, I had a vision of a place that was full of sunshine. The pigeon hooted with fright, turned and ran off, rejoining the others.
I pressed my forehead. There was no pain. But my head felt vast. “Worlds!” I whispered. All the screaming chaos in my mind that stressed, dwelt, worried, lamented over what had happened to me since I stepped out of my room in Tower 7— it stopped. It was still there, but for the moment, it was on pause. I quickly understood. The alien seed was speaking to me in a way that reminded me of Mmuo’s method. However, unlike Mmuo’s nanomite communication, it didn’t speak in words. It spoke directly to my mind; it touched my psyche, and its touch was magnificent.
I looked over the ledge of the building, at the ocean. Past the ship. Into the darkness. I saw images of another place. A place that was warm like New York, with the same palm trees and flooding. A place plagued with New Malaria like New York, but with people who looked like me. It was not New York. It was not even the United States. It was far. How would I get there? By plane? By the ship? Me? Phoenix, the rogue winged speciMen who was believed to have brought down the Axis and probably blamed for Tower 7’s collapse as well? How would I do that?
I stood very still. The pigeons behind me were quiet, too.
I decided in the same way that I decided I wanted to escape Tower 7, on impulse.
I spread my wings. I ran and then flew, catching a gust of wind that lifted me into the sky with an ease that I didn’t have the first time. Several pigeons flew with me, but they turned back when I reached the water. And that was how I started flying across the ocean. Maybe a part of me was like Saeed and wanted to die. Maybe. But it was more than that.
• • •
The first few days were pain. I did not need to eat, urinate, defecate, or sleep. Hours after I started my journey, I felt the box warm in my hands and then my entire body grew brighter, and I warmed, too. My stomach gurgled and then I felt it do something very strange. It tightened up, hard like a stone.
At first I thought the alien seed had done something to my body. But as time passed, I realized it was more likely that I had done it to myself because the seed had shown me how. While flying I had unknotted my stomach using sheer will. As soon as I did, the pain was so terrible that I quickly re-knotted it.
So the pain did not come from my stomach, bowels, bladder, or a lack of sleep. It came from my shoulders and back. I needed to build up muscles, and I had to do it while crossing the ocean. To fall into the water was death by drowning or worse. I had no time to test just how waterproof my feathers were.
I flew through the pain, and for days I could think of nothing else but flying southeast and not dropping into the ocean. I put the alien seed inside my dress where it rested close to my heart. It was like a mysterious navigation device, showing me the way in my mind. The only respite I got were the times when the wind carried me. My wings were powerful. I was made to travel long long distances. Who knows, maybe I even had albatross DNA mixed with mine. And like an albatross, I quickly learned how to fly without flying. When the wind was right, I could fly for miles and miles without doing a thing.
When the pain finally stopped, I could notice the ocean. Its vastness. In the day, the blueness. In the night, the blackness. All that had happened was and seemed so far away. The world was different here.
Hours before I saw the coast of Africa, I saw just how different the world was over the ocean. I was watching a storm churn miles away, riding some of the resulting winds, when I happened to glance below. Here, the sun was out, the water was clear, and I was flying high, so I saw the thing in its fullness. Its giant red body was bulbous like the sack of a jellyfish, but the skin looked thick and tough like an elephant’s. It had three massive tentacles that it used to propel itself forth and an equally massive round head with squishy yellow swiveling bug eyes. The creature was the size of thirty houses. Large houses. It was not a giant squid or any kind of cephalopod. If anything, it looked mammalian.
The creature looked up at me with those yellow eyes, staring for a long time. Its eyes were so huge, that I could clearly see its black pupils fixed on me. I had no idea if the thing could leap, so I flew higher. It watched me with interest for a while and then eventually sunk back into the deep.
I couldn’t have been gladder to see the coast of Africa. The first meal I had in two weeks was given to me by a kind old Sierra Leonean woman who spoke perfect English and wasn’t afraid of women with wings. It was fried fish, fresh baked cassava bread, and thick tasty okra soup. As I ate, she said, “You will need this, I think” and held up a garment made of coarse blue cloth. She called it a burka, and it fit over my head, covering me from head to toe, wings and all. I knew what it was, for I’d read about Islamic traditions.
“I respect the religion,” I quietly said. “But I don’t . . .”
“Take it,” she insisted. “You will need to pick and choose who sees what you are. The burka is freedom.” She wrapped it tightly, put it in a satchel, and I took it. I knew she was right. I slept for two days and then after meeting her entire family, I set off, again.
• • •
The tree grew wide, tall, and crooked, as if it were dancing very very slowly. It had long narrow leaves and its branches were heavy with bunches of shea fruits. I wouldn’t have known what they were if I hadn’t run into the young woman who could speak English. This was a farm where the nuts used for shea butter were made.
The seed had led me to a Northern town in Ghana called Wulugu. Within Wulugu, it led me to the middle of a shea tree farm not far from a small village. To this large tree. There were people in these farms working. How strange I must have looked to them, for this was not a place where there were many Muslims, and here I was in a full burka, all alone. My folded wings, which I’d pulled closely to my back, made me look like a crippled hunchback. Beneath it, I wore my heat resistant white dress, now tan and stiff with dust, sand, and sea salt.
I dropped to my knees and began to dig with my bare hands. All day, I had eaten nothing but a few bananas that I’d plucked from a tree hours ago. My belly was empty. I had no money. I did not know what I would do after this. I was still glowing, though my body remained cool. But none of that was important. This nut. This alien seed was the focus of all things for me.
The dirt was red and moist just like the dirt at the base of The Backbone. It was easy to dig here. I dug a hole three feet deep and by then, I had an audience. I decided to give them a show. I shined brightly through my burka and giggled as all the trees and plants including the one right in front of me began to stretch, their leaves unfurling, their stems expanding. Some people screamed, but most of them sighed and murmured with awe. Some brought out portables and took pictures. While they watched the plants grow, I brought out the box with the seed and gently placed it in the hole.
As soon as I did this, I felt it go out. The light within me extinguished. The plants around me stopped growing impossibly fast. Just like that. It was such a relief that I sighed and leaned forward. I could feel the seed sucking and sucking the glowing life-enhancing energy. I could have sworn that I even heard the “clop” of the box closing. I sat up, looking at my hands. They did not glow with even the hint of green yellow. I touched my back. My wings were still there. Stronger than ever. Begging for the sky as something deep in me begged for justice. Justice for what had been done to me and all the other prisoners in Tower 7, in all the towers. Would I still burn and come alive? I would find out.
I stood and faced the people gathered. A woman came forth laughing something I did not understand. She switched to English and said, “Welcome.” Then she hugged me. Then a man joined in. They all hugged me. I hugged them back.