Wings of Death

I woke up and opened my eyes. I was feeling refreshed. Was I just born? No, I wasn’t. There was nothing wet on my body. But I felt alive. Perhaps I have woken up from a deep sleep, a sleep that didn’t include only one night, but covered my entire existence thus far.

But the joy of breathing again was short lived. I was now feeling pain throughout my body. I looked down, and I saw myself in shackles. I had a chain around my neck, which also locked my arms behind me. I felt sharp pain in my joints, as if someone was constantly stabbing me. The chain around my neck was tight, but not tight enough to kill me.

Perhaps these fetters were already here, perhaps since I first came into this world. I was a little boy then, which is why they didn’t fit too tight. I could move and even play around in them. And here I was restrained by the same chains. I could see my hands turning red, as the blood vessels were under pressure.

It is a good thing that human beings have a growing age. I think I have reached mine. If I grow beyond this, I will break the chains, or my own neck.

So, what do I do now? Wait? That was the only thing that could be done. I was alone in the room, which was surrounded from all sides. But wait, there is no roof. Of course, I couldn’t turn my head up, but I could roll my eyeballs upwards. The human body is amazing, and you can do a million things with it, and to it. You can even hypnotize yourself.

Why was I getting restless? If these chains were too tight, then perhaps they were not meant for me. Maybe it was to hold me in place during my early years so I may learn self-control. But now I had to break away, and so I tried.

To my amazement, I freed my hands in no time! And since this was the chain that held my neck as well, I easily removed it. Relief at last! I turned my head sideways, only to hear the sounds of bones grinding against each other. After all, it has been quite some time.

I moved my hands around. At first, I couldn’t, but as the circulation restored, I was soon able to lift my arms and clench my fists. And then I felt something protrude from my sides. I could not believe my eyes. There were wings, large white wings, on my left and right.

I took me a while to realize that they were my own. Did I have them before? Did they grow longer with time, like hair? Were they given to me, or did I grow them out of necessity?

Whatever the cause, I knew one thing: I was going to leave this room of irons and fly my way out into the open sky. I positioned my body for the flight and closed my eyes.

“3, 2……………..1!” I shot upwards, like a bullet ready to pierce a hole in the sky. As I lifted my arms to go higher, my flight stopped, instantly.

I was neither going up, nor falling down. I felt something on my legs. Something was holding me back. I looked down and saw chains on my feet. I didn’t realize that they were there before.

I was not going to be held back anymore. So I closed my eyes once again, and pushed my body harder for the next flight.

“3, 2……1!” The chains broke, but I didn’t move from my place. I heard a sound, a sound of breaking bones. Had I cracked my ankles? It didn’t feel that way.

I was hovering in the sky, and below me was the room. In the middle was the chair on which I had sat for all these years. But wait, there was a hole beneath the chair, and the chains that locked my feet were going inside it.

I didn’t want to go back in, but at the same time I was perplexed by the sound of broken bones I heard a moment ago. And then I thought to myself: “I have wings now, and I am free. I can fly out again” With these words in my mind, I descended back into the room, and down the dark opening.

I followed the trail of the chain and came down till the end of that dungeon-like space. As I moved towards the side, sunlight came inside, and soon I saw where the other end of chain was tied to.

It was a human being. Someone I knew. Maybe it was my father, or some other relative. The other end of the chain was in his neck. I broke his neck when I flew upwards. And now the dead corpse lay there. Did I kill him? So it appeared. But I never knew he was here and I had no clue that we were tied together.

I thought I had become free. I thought “at last I am free to fly around as I please, and reach new heights!” But although I was liberated physically, my mind could not go over the fact that I had, in essence, killed one of my own in the attempt to free myself from the shackles that held me captive.

I sat there, thinking to myself: "What a wretched man am I! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?"

By Suleman John