Okay, so this one needs a bit of a prologue. I was standing at my bus stop this morning thinking to myself the line "Ours is world not worth fighting for." And I imagined it being said by some mythical being or just mysterious person. It was at that time I looked up at the sky and there were about 70 seagulls overhead in all directions flying in one direction. Perhaps they were flying south for the winter? I have no clue. Anyway, this is what inspired the line 'And as she flew away with the others she said, "Yours is a world not worth fighting for." ' I wrote this down when I got to school, changing the 'Ours' to 'Yours'. And then I got the idea of a kind-of migration of species. Like in the book, The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss, which we read about a billion times for school. Anyway, in the book all these animals start leaving because they're cutting down the trees. Well, this is like they're leaving but without the trees. I had an idea that the birds especially just got upset with humanity and decided to take off. Where..well, I don't really know. But well...okay, I'll let you get to the writing…It didn’t really turn out like I thought it would…just don’t expect anything wonderful.



The stop sign blurred out in all directions as I pulled the rusty Chevy around the corner. I wanted to feel the pavement's texture under my fingers so I reached out past the window's glass but she pulled me back. Her pale, cold touch against mine. Pulling me back to reality. Upholstery stained with beer and sex. My stomach revolted against the sudden sharp imagery. I eased on the brake and turned off onto a gravel road. The car rumbled to a stop, sputtering its protest.

I gripped the wheel, my fingers trying to dig themselves in. She released them, took my hands. The first time I had really looked at her since I had first seen her at my doorstep. My heart skipped with the drugs and her hands holding mine were the only things that fastened me to reality.

Her mouth moved in a delicate orchestra. Lips curling around the words. Finding a way to seduce me once more. I tried to kiss her but she was moving so fast that every time I landed in one spot she had moved to another.

She said, "Let's go outside. The stars are beautiful tonight."

I wanted to tell her she was more beautiful than any star I had ever seen. I wanted to ask her what the tattooed symbol on the small of her back meant. I wanted to breathe her in. But she was moving too fast.

My numb fingers felt for the door handle and I stepped out into the biting wind. She didn't seem to mind. Leaning her palms back on the hood of the small car, only a tank top and some worn jeans. She smiled and motioned towards my right hand. I looked down, forgetting I had grabbed a bottle of mixed alcohol before I had left the car. We both moved closer to each other and she slipped her fingers around the bottle's round figure, taking it away from me. I didn't mind. I was drinking her toxins in tonight. Crude taste balanced with a magnetic charge. Tongue flickering out to trace her bottom lip as she took a sip of the acrid liquid.

She reached over and put her arm around my waist. My racing mind took a second to comprehend this and my first thought was just to kiss her. Leaning in I tried to press my lips against hers but she danced away, the lighter that had been in my back pocket now between her fingers. She pretended to move the flame along the bottom of the glass. Her eyes searching mine as if to ask, do you dare me? Her hips swayed to their own percussion and, without waiting for an answer from me, she licked her thumb and twisted the cap off the bottle.

Her eyes caught mine and she sauntered slowly to me until her lips were tracing my ear, her breath hot and moist, “Do you want to leave with me and never go back?”

I blinked. My throat forcing back burning words and bile. I caught her scent and buried my face into her neck. She pulled away and handed me the bottle, her pearl necklaces intertwined and clinking against her chest. I took it from her and tilted it back, hardly feeling the liquid as it rushed down my neck.

I had only known this girl for two weeks. Her pink hair and hula hoop earrings had intoxicated me. Her breath that tasted of smoke and lemon drops. The first time I had kissed her I fell into a coughing fit that made me want more as she smiled, laughed and asked me if I smoked anything. I told her sometimes salmon and she had given me a curious look and it was my turn to smile and laugh. She had shown up at my doorstep when I wasn’t home and sat on the porch to wait. She was convinced otherwise that drugs had played a key role that day. She had said she was high off life, but I didn’t believe her because my drugs were stronger. I had stopped attending classes. My life had altered as I was swept away by the pace of this girl and the way she danced in circles around me. And now I wondered, as the wind clawed at my neck, if I should go with this girl whose name rhymed with the stars.

A kiss I wasn’t expecting that uprooted me from all thoughts. A deciding kiss. I knew I would have to make a decision as she pulled her lips away and left her impression on my thoughts. My tongue protested against the words as I replied a sordid no. She looked away, tears building in the crescents of her match-lit eyes. She stole the bottle away from me and ran over to a nearby oak, spilling the contents along the tree’s trunk. She licked her thumb again and reached out for the lighter in her pocket. Flicking the switch, the lighter snapped to life and the flame licked at the air trying to find some gravity. She looked back at me as I sunk against the hood of the car and she shrugged as she tossed the lighter at the tree. A blaze of life and heat. I ran out to where she was sitting now, watching the burning leaves snap and fall to earth. Tears marked her glittered face and she looked up at me.

“This was the last chance for humanity. It’s done….Yours…Yours is world not worth fighting for...” she sniffled and tried to continue.

I stopped her by holding out my hand. Reluctantly, she took it and we walked back to the car together, the fire’s heat on our backs and the stars overhead. She sat with me in the car and we waited until dawn to speak. It didn’t take longer than four hours, but, still, we waited. She fell asleep in the back seat and I covered her slim body with my sweater. The tree smoldered and finally the fire went out without spreading.

The dawn woke her with a start and she gasped as she looked at me, an almost fear in her eyes, words spewing out of her mouth at a rapid fire pace, “They’re all leaving. The fire. Please. I need you. They’re all leaving.” She climbed into the front seat and gripped my sweater in her hands. “I have to go. You chose not to come. You chose.” Her voice pleaded and I was barely awake enough to comprehend her words.

Before I could answer, she fled the car and ran across the field, her eyes searching the skies. I followed her. She slowed down and started walking back and forth as if she was looking for something as her eyes scanned the skies.

She said to me, “The fire was a signal. For the time, the day. I must not be too late. They’re all leaving and I must go with them.”

I grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to face me, “What are you talking about? What do you mean?”

She leaned back against my grip, “We waited a long time to see if you would change. If humans would change. It’s getting too late to go back. Now we have to leave. I’m sorry. I wanted to give you one last chance. Because you gave me a chance once. In winter, when I had been left because of a broken…a broken limb. You saved me until they came back in the spring. You nursed me back to health.”

“What are you talking about? I’ve only known you for two weeks.”

“I wanted to experience life in its fullest forms before we left. I wanted to give you a chance to come with us when we went away forever. I’m sorry that I have to leave. I’m sorry it has to be this way.” Her eyes flew back up to the sky.

I started to speak but was stopped by a sound of flapping. It sounded like wings. I shook my head and looked back to her but she had slipped from my grip and was running towards the sound. I looked up. The sound was deafening now. They were overhead. Birds by the thousands, by the millions, flapping and squawking. All kinds, too. Ravens, sparrows, parrots, pigeons, eagles. I dropped to my knees in shock.

My eyes wandered back to her running through the fields. She was picking up pace, she had always been so fast. And as she did, I knew, she was changing. Her hair grew darker and longer. Her lips curving into a yellow beak, her feet into talons. A bird. She wheeled around and screeched as she climbed higher into the sky, joining the others. My sweater dropped to the ground as if a last reminder of what I had given up. And as she flew away, I thought about her words at the fire, “Yours is a world not worth fighting for.” And I wondered where they were going to go to get away from humanity. I thought, as I walked back to my car and the flapping decreased, maybe Costa Rica. Maybe even Canada. I laughed. I never had asked her what the symbol meant on the small of her back. I never had told her that I loved her, even after she told me she was a bird. I never had kissed her without meaning it.