i.
A broken wing means a dead bird.

ii.
That lithe, feathered appendage has been long admired, long envied. In the museum, splayed skeletons and their fine wing-bones are mapped onto the familiar human form— this foreign joint to our elbow, another to the wrist. Similarities little more than a taunt: so close, so far. But we have our own means of appropriation, mimicry and mirrors. Wing: limb, part, side-section, badge; fly, escape, flee, move, improvise, wound, maim. A jutting into air!— meticulously harnessing lift and drag; A behemoth is forced into indeterminate atmosphere. A wing, perhaps, of our own. But the evasive elegance of that feathered appendage remains— admired, envied.

iii.
      When the hum began again, she was staring at the hazy sky. The pale swath seemed impossibly high against the low buildings that ringed her vision. Her gaze floundered in its featureless depths until gradually, her vision lost focus— Then she shifted, turning and pressing her cheek into the rough grass, looking across its yellow surface.
      In the dappled shade at the park’s perimeter, an old man sat perched on a bench. Under his woven hat rested a pair of thick-lensed glasses; his hands stretched before him, propped on a walking stick. The brim of his hat trailed a passerby’s footsteps, then a squirrel’s frantic movements. As she watched, his gaze continued to drift, rising and falling through columns of sunlight and shadow, as though buffeted by a breeze. She followed its lilting path across the park until, finally, it landed on her. The hum had grown into an obstinate droning.
      For a while, they considered each other. She saw he had a small moustache. He couldn’t see her features clearly, but noticed her yellow hair, melting into the parched lawn. He stood up, brushed a few leaves from his legs, and started to walk her direction.
      She looked into the sky. The droning increased, widening into a roar that weighed on the stagnant air.
      “When I was younger, I didn’t like this park much,” he said, squinting in the light. “But now I find myself coming here most days.” He looked down at her, spread-eagle in the knotted grass.
      The roar swelled, pressing harder into the brittle air. She thought the flat sky above his head might rupture under the aching force, its internal structure suddenly succumb and buckle, collapsing into some new unimaginable form. He didn’t notice.
      “At two thirty, the shadow passes right over this spot,” she said. He didn’t hear her—his hearing wasn’t what it used to be—and said nothing.
      Then a shadow darted across her, its wingtip grazing her left eyebrow. It was chased by the noise, which crescendoed now, pushing her into the ground as it rolled over her. Immediately it began to soften; soon it was only a rumble again, fading into blue. She lay still for a moment.
      “One day,” she said, “it will really happen.”
      “You’re sunburned,” he answered, and walked away.