Fly.
He's eleven. She's older - Fifteen? - but already has that something that will become dignity someday. He's sending a letter.
She's in the Owlery. She tells him it's her birthday.
In her hand is a cage, and a white bird flaps its wings.
It's her present, she says.
He nods mutely.
She opens the door. The bird teeters on the edge of leaving.
It flies.
He gapes. She explains,
"The bird wasn't my present. My present was its freedom."
She leaves the cage there, empty, the door hanging open like an open wound, like something broken that will never heal. Once she's gone, he climbs on the window and dangles his legs outside. He turns his face to the sky.
Fly.
