Possibly my ninth bird of the day, I broke down the carcass and made stock with this one. The messier stage has been handled for me, and I give thanks that it was someone else's job. I butchered it into eight flightless, succulent parts that became the highlight of someone’s phone screen for a few minutes, then were picked over until no longer needed. Incomplete, though certainly finished, and then disposed. I can trust this process, but is this how I want to participate?

Humanity has acquired this expectation of being able to harness the wind and reach new heights. Soar, fly high! Touch the sky! So we jump around and flap, trying our hardest to turn any dream into a reality, jumping around our calendar and flapping through our to-do lists. I no longer grieve over my past life as a salesman. After my last sales call for shiny, new devices to amplify your social experience, I put myself above all of this by becoming a cook…Well, I told myself that’s what I did. Rather, instead, I replaced jumping for reaching and flapping for chopping…still looking up to the promise.

“Is that how my onions are supposed to look?” said the Chef.

“No, Chef,” I responded without missing a beat.

“Then what are you doing?”

“I’m starting over, Chef.”

“You think you can use my time to start again?”

His time? I take a deep breath, as the squawking will soon be over: “No, Chef, sorry Chef.”

“Five minutes to pass!”

“Yes, Chef!” shouted the whole line, reaching and chopping.

It’s hard working for a sparrow that has the access of a falcon. I’m accustomed to being led by the sure sparrow.

“Chop up the onions and throw ‘em in,” my aunt would say. That gracious voice now speaks against terminal disease, as she tires from a life of flying. She’s expecting to transition any day now. Death brings new beginnings…hopefully, you push through to the endings. We can come to terms with the endings of the flesh with comprehensible ease. Ease may be a turbulent word, with gratitude being the pilot. I am able to busy myself with reductions and prep lists, I’ve decided not to have a long goodbye, grateful for the varied hellos. If this is closure, then I have it. Yet, mournful memories of “throw ‘em in” race through my mind as I try not to stomp the loud squawking in front of me as he is held up from dressing the corpse of a roasted bird for a short and insufficient funeral. When a pan of corrected onions slides in and obstructs my view, I look to see its deliverer: my fellow lineman, communicating to me that the worry is small and all is well. It was indeed, even as my phone began to chime.

There I stood, once again; another worker bee taking on the weariness of a harmed world, aiding a system in its beautification of one of the most monopolized resources, when my phone flashes in my pocket. I froze. I know it is Transition calling, but a dead bird “dying” on a hot plate is being given priority as an apex predator chirps aggressively about it. I’m still frozen. I knew what was happening. Not the consequence, but the action: I was being given the opportunity to be,to show up for one who helped me harness the wind. Flapping my wings, I pulled out my phone. There was a text from my cousin:

“She’s gone, bro.”

I froze.

“Is there a reason I don’t have my food?” said Chef, in a uniform that would never pass inspection if I wore it. “I don’t understand why you think you run my restaurant, but you don’t. This is my restaurant, my service, and I want that food in the pass right now.”

My hands clasp, my peers push, my breath quickens. Flapping harder and harder, my feet begin to lift off the ground. There is food in the pass, dying. Another order arrives. Then another, and another. The cycle is too familiar right now. The dish in the pass is not up to standard…I chuckle to myself. 

“Just serve the food, man.”

We lock eyes. Silence. I let it, until the final words from Chef. I am fully off the ground, flying out of the kitchen, as my apron hits the floor.

***

“I love you, bro. I’ll call you later.”

That was the only response I could find. True, and short. I couldn’t fly further than that right now. Not because the lineman was busy telling me about how he told Chef he could choke on his dry mashed potatoes before he himself walked out. I welcomed the distraction, as he was always willing to let me pretend I smoked with him out back for a brief respite. 

“He doesn’t even know how much better we are, bruh”, he hollered. A firestarter. He just liked to talk; I needed to enhance the pain.

“If he didn’t have us, then he wouldn’t have anything. The people eat because he eats first and he only eats because we feed him. Then we turn around and feed ourselves…so why are we feeding him at all? Cycle shit, bruh. My girl is always talking about this. ‘I can make my own damn plate!’ She be talking, but she talking!” The sudden soliloquy with a message that saves us both. “Man, don’t even worry about it. You’ll be straight. We out. You go see the family and show love. You’ll get up again. And me, I need my own thing. I need to—”,

The fastest drop from the sky made a flightless thud and the biggest mess.

That baby bird fell right in front of me. Quick, and without a chance. Fly or die. I froze, looking up as the mother looked down, then away. Life went on, though my friend couldn’t. He melted to a browned butter right before me. Aggression feeds off aggression, given a moment of release. Tears swelled in his eyes, and I stood frozen, though a smirk broke through the ice. 

“What are you smiling for?” said the lineman.

I chuckled. Then cackled. Then hollered. Then I breathed. The lineman saw a crazy man. I felt like I received a gift. Gratitude caramelizing death into a sweet release.

“Yo, I'm out,” the said Lineman, with a desire in his voice, fading with each step as he walked away. “Are we together in this?” came from his eyes, not his mouth. Are we? He desired an answer. My pause gave little security to anyone.

Fly or die.

“What we doing?” I huffed, running up to my brother in arms, throwing one around him, my hand resting on his heart.

“I don’t know…something,” he responds.

“Bet.”