dlvr.it
Debut Flash: 'Bird Tag' by Nicole Savage
The sky is bright and welcoming today, calling for me to sit outside and enjoy its company. It is early spring, and the season has sprinkled a light dusting of pollen on everything like pixie dust. The birds sing their songs and chase each other around from phone line to phone line in an elaborate game of tag. The trees make abstract art with the light shining through their branches, splaying it out onto the pavement for my enjoyment.
It is harder to see things as they are, to resist metaphor. The birds are not playing tag, they are being territorial. Everything is trying fiercely to survive, and I go and trivialize their efforts with literary devices, even now I anthropomorphize. I think it is my way of trying to survive. I need to believe that nature plays my childhood games.
I don’t want the wind to just blow, I want it to play with my hair, to be imbued with significance, to likewise make me of significance.
The sky is clear and vibrant today, so I decide to enjoy it. It is early spring and there is a fine coating of pollen on everything that sits outside for more than a minute. The birds are active, territorial, and full of song for their mating season. The light shines through the trees, splitting into countless thin beams. I have to focus to be able to differentiate them, lest they all blend together. I squint my eyes at the spectacle of scattered energy. For no good reason, I’ll pay attention.
---
Nicole Savage (she/her), is a writer and medical student from Memphis, TN, seeking to deepen her understanding of humanity through the arts of medicine and language
