Just Talkin'

Wings

I sit on the ground, examining the Polaroid in my hand. The image was blurry, indecipherable to the naked eye, but as I stared at it, the image became clearer and clearer.

In the small square sat a girl, her back to the camera. Her hair fell several inches bellow her shoulders, dark brown in color. In her right hand, she held a bright yellow balloon. She sat on the ledge of where a window would sit, and she had her gaze fixed ahead of her into the vacant blue sky. The image was calming; beautiful. But then it changed.

The more my eyes lingered, the more change occurred. The girl let go of the balloon, and then her surroundings changed to a padded room with nothing but paint splatters and pills. Then, it changed to a corridor with a painting at the end that I could not make out, and I saw her extend her arm to it.

Her surroundings played over and over. It went to a scene of her standing in the middle of a highway with a car barreling towards her, it went to a phonebooth with chains around it. It went to a hospital bed. So many changes occurred. It showed her being interrogated by the police, so many different images.

I felt a piercing in my chest and it made me cry, but the tears that dropped onto the Polaroid image were of brightly colored paint. I stared as the image slowly faded to black, and in it I could see my reflection. The paint oozed down, lining up with what was on my cheeks and creating a waterfall on the Polaroid.

A smile slowly crept onto my face as I stared into my own eyes. Then, fluttering and the cawing of birds sounded outside my window, and I looked out and stared into the eyes of myself.

The me that I was seeing was standing in the middle of the highway, a car barreling towards her. I closed my eyes and listened to the accident.

The screeching of tires.

The car horn.

The crash.

When I opened my eyes, I was standing in front of the chained up phonebooth I had seen in the Polaroid. I placed my hands on it, the cool of the metal against my hands making me shiver. I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against it.

When I had lifted my head, my hands instead were pressed against the wall, and my eyes were locked onto a painting of a forest and mountains, but when I moved, it changed to that of an abstract painting of a mother holding her baby close.

I closed my eyes again.

When I opened them, I was staring at another painting, but that of a bird. It looked like the black paint and the white canvas were meant to find each other. I took a step back, and the few things in the room began to shift and hide themselves in the shadows.

I stared ahead, and when a bright light had flashed on behind me, I could see my shadow. A pair of wings slowly spread and raised themselves high, and I grinned so large.

Finally, my wings are complete.

This was based on the WINGS short films by BTS and BigHit. Even though Lie is Jimin's thing, I added Serendipity because I like that music video, don't judge me.