MEMENTO.

Tobias

I was used to hunger. Winters were always lean, but this was different.

During the spring time I was supposed to grow fat and sleek on ducklings, chicks, litters of rabbits hopping clumsily in daisy filled meadows. But last spring I didn't. I squinted into the fields and tried to follow the movement of animals to their shelters, and failed.

So instead I followed what I could see. The long stretch of highway that shone molten black against the beige landscape. I let myself drift along on flurries of hot air rising from the tar while I looked for streaks of red roadkill, trying to ignore my aching joints.

I ate freshly killed racoon and deer all spring, summer and fall. I followed hunters back to their offal pits and staved off my hunger. And then the days began to grow short and cold. The black tar of the highway stayed cold, so I had to flap and flap my aching wings to search for roadkill. It was a day like this that another instinct took hold. The instinct telling me to find a perch somewhere sheltered, and to roost there. Somewhere nice and warm where I could just fade away. The hawk was dying.

But did I want to die?

I could pass away with the Hawk, but I had other options. I could find another young hawk. Acquire him and live another 20 years. Hunting. Flying.

Or some other animal. A galapagos tortoise perhaps? I could live another century that way.

Or an Andelite. I could live with my Shorm Ax and his people.

Or I could be human. The road I was following was drawing closer to the city again. I could just land on the outskirts of town and morph back into him. A maladjusted teenage boy and then an awkward loner for 60 years or so.

Or you could go to college, dumbass, she whispered.

College? Did I want to go to college when I was a boy?

Yeah you wanted to go to college. You wanted to be a writer or a videogame developer or a guidance counsellor, depending on what mood you were in, she said.

Did I ever tell her that? I couldn't remember.

The sun was beginning to set as I drew close to the outdoor cinema. I landed on the fence to scan the session times.

You could go to the movies whenever you wanted. Actually choose the movie, she said.

They were having a big 80s retro festival. Back to the Future. Gremlins. Revenge of the Nerds.

Try being human again. Just try before it's too late.

She would have been so good at living. Why was I the one with the second chance?