"Carol Emshwiller - All of Us Can Almost..." - читать интересную книгу автора (Emshwiller Carol)

All of Us Can Almost....

A Short Story

by Carol Emshwiller


тАж fly, that is. Of course lots of creatures can almost fly. But all of us are able to match any others of us,
wingspan to wingspan. Also to any other fliers. But though we match each other wing to wing, we can't
get more than inches off the ground. If that. But we're impressive. Our beaks look vicious. We could
pose for statues for the birds representing an empire. We could represent an army or a president. And
actually, we are the empire. We may not be able to fly, but we rule the skies. And most everything else
too.

Creatures come to us for advice on flying. They see us kick up dust and flap and stretch and are awed.

We croak out what we have to say in quacks. We tell them, "The sky is a highway. The sky is of our
time and recent. The sky is flat. It's blue because it's happy." They thank us with donations. That's how
we live.

The sound of our clacking beaks carries across the valley. It adds to our reputation as powerfulтАФthough
what good is it really? It's just noise.

Nothing said of us is true, but must we live by truths? Why not keep on living by our lies?

Soaring! Think of it! The stillness of it. Not even the sound of flapping. They say we once did that.
Perhaps we still can and just forgot how to begin. How make that first jump? How get the lift? But we
grew too large. We began to eat the things that fell, and lots of things fall.

I could leap off a cliff. Test myself. But I might become one of those things tumbling down. Even my own
kind would tear me apart.

Loosely тАж very loosely speaking, I do fly. My sleep is full of nothing but that. The joy of it.

But where's the joy in almost doing it? Flapping in circles. Making a great wind for nothing but a jump or
two. We don't even look good to ourselves.

I don't know what we're made for. It's neither sky nor water nor тАж especially not тАж the waddle of the
land. We can't sing. Actually, we can't do anything. Except look fierce.

Pigeons circle overhead. Meadowlarks sing. Geese and ducks, in Vs, do their seasonal things. We stay.
We have to. Winter storms come and we're still here. We puff up as much as we can and wrap our
wings around ourselves. Perhaps that's what our wings were for in the first place. We're designed merely
to shelter ourselves. Even our dreams of flying are yet more lies.

But none others are as strong as we are тАж at least none seem to be. We win with looks alone and a big
voice. We stand, assured and sure.
When creatures ask me for a ride, I say, "I'd take you up anytime you wantтАФhop and skip and up we
goтАФexcept you're too heavy. Next time measure wings, mine against some other of us. You'll need a
few inches more on each side. Tell a bigger one I said to take you up."