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You can also find this story in Short Stories

Short Story 1: The Girl and the Bird

There was a fly flying over her head. Again. This fly kept coming here and flying over her head. It always bothered her. But this time it was very close, too close. She tried to keep it away. But the fly was consistent. It kept flying over her and it kept coming closer. She got annoyed. She decided to send the fly into eternal silence once and for all. For that, she waited until the fly got even closer. Once she thought the fly was close enough, she raised her hand with the aim of hardly knocking it down. Now, her hand was going down on the fly. But the fly flew again, very quickly, and sat on her nose.

 

She looked at where the fly was. She could not see a fly but a ladybug.  The ladybug was also flying over her head. She watched the ladybug fly around for a while. She was surprised at what had just happened. Where had the fly gone or how had it turned into a ladybug? But her feeling of anger was still there: she still wanted to get rid of the ladybug. Though still captured by her surprise, she tried to raise her hand. But her hand just wouldn’t move. The ladybug then flew towards the ceiling. It flew and flew and once it touched the ceiling, the ceiling cracked open.

 

The ladybug started flying through the opening towards the now-directly-visible sky. But it stopped after a while. She could still see it. It stood just at the corner of the roof that was split in half. She noticed the wings of the ladybug getting a bit bigger. And its wings started flapping harder and faster. This caused a strong wind and she could feel it. Now, there was so much dust because of the wind that she barely saw anything. She thought she lost the ladybug. A few minutes later, though, the wind started dying down and she started seeing what was up there a bit better. There was no ladybug this time. There was just one giant white bird. A beautiful giant white bird. This was yet another transformation. What was going on?

 

Then, she heard someone calling her name. Who was talking to her? She could not see anyone. She followed the voice and realized that the voice came from somewhere in the sky. She still could not see anyone. Then, the bird flapped its wings harder and faster to make her notice it. It was also calling her name as it did that. Now she knew: the bird was calling her. Now she heard it saying: ‘Hey, do you want to come up here?’

 

She stayed silent. Was it really the bird that was talking? What was really going on?

 

But her curiosity eventually took over and she said ‘Yes’. The bird then came down and grabbed her. She sat on its back and they flew together high into the sky. They traveled to many places. To places which she had learnt about in her geography class. Mountain ranges, deep oceans, poles. She saw forests and rivers. She saw flies and ladybugs and birds.

 

The bird then stopped. It said it was time to go back. She was initially reluctant but she still agreed. After all, who was she to decide on the routes in this journey? She had not done anything anyway. She was just being carried around on the back of a bird.

 

Then, she started hearing another voice. It said: ‘Hey, are you ok?’ She could not reply. Then the voice started talking to others: ‘Sir, she kept waiving her hand and talking about mountains and oceans and what not. She seems to be sleeping but I got worried.’ The other voice replied: ‘If she is not waking up, let her sleep for now. We better start with our class. We are going to continue learning the landscape of Europe.’

 

Note: I wrote this on the plane from Los Angeles to New Jersey. My final destination is Brussels, so I believe there is more to come.