Realization
I am free! Finally, the fog has lifted, my vision is slowly clearing, my eyes adjusting to the light, it hurts. I now see the world as it is, in all its diversity! I see beauty, I see light, I see the sun, blue sky, and white clouds. I am overwhelmed. Slowly, my gaze lowers, away from the white-blue sky, away from the warming sun. What I see freezes me with fear. The world is not as it was in the dreams within my cage. The more I see, the more frightened I become. Slowly, I realize that my cage didn’t imprison me; it kept the world out. The cage wasn’t the prison; the cage was my fortress!
The fourth of six images in the story “All the Birds Have Flown Away.”