Heights

Heights have been my greatest weakness; not because I am scared of falling down but because it gives me a strange extent of pride that allays my soul. Soaring above the clouds, flying freely as if I own the world further embellishes my delight. The sky becomes my haven and my wilderness. For I am an eagle and I fly above all. From the deep rooted secrets of treachery to the greatest feats of bravery; my eye views it all. I have vision and I despise those who are too weak to benefit from it. Just the other day, as I was on my custom flight, I witnessed an incident. A young seemingly felicitous girl, around the age of ten, short and skinny with long brown hair was dancing around in a yard with inhumane and inordinate celerity. She was dancing in her own little convivial world and I? I sat on the top branch of a tree watching her indigently. I sat there watching her for a few ephemeral seconds, waiting for her to glance at my illusory guise and run away. You see, normally people think of me as a bestial murderer who has the effrontery to be proud of his actions, but these misanthrope people are too blind to see my helplessness. Nevertheless that girl was different. No, it was not because of her astounding movements, but because she looked at me in the eye without wincing. I sat their staring at her, her me, and I waited. Waited for her to blink, but she didn't. She just stood there looking at me, not with a furtive glance but with an eye contact so pertinacious that I felt my eyes tear up but she didn't blink. I noticed something in her eyes; they were different than any other human being on this planet. It wasn't the garish blue color of her eyes. It wasn't the dark bags under her eyes either. It was a feeling of understanding. I felt like she had x-ray vision and could see through me as if my raiment of feathers was transparent. She could perceive my ambivalent thoughts as if it were a part of her own soul. Maybe that was the moment I realized she was just like me-alienated from her world. I did what I had not done to any human being before for bowing down to inhumane humanity was demurred by my coterie. I broke the eye contact first. I committed a felony. I was a culprit but such picayune crime felt mundane compared to the feeling that occupied me. For the first time since my existence I felt alive. I felt as if I had found a counterpart and I was understood for once. I had jettisoned my kind and I was content.