II

“I have to be at the airport by 10:00 dad and it’s already 9:20!” I walked into his bedroom - the bed was unmade, and there was clean laundry folded on the bench at the end of his bed. He had a picture of me, Lucie and Adriana when we were children in a cheap silver frame beside his bed - I must have been about eight years old in it. I used to have a mushroom cut; I look like a little boy in a white frilly dress. Adriana has a purple ribbon in her shoulder length blonde curly hair and Lucie is only about two years old, just sitting there looking cute. She still has baby skin in the picture, you can tell because it has that smooth porcelain glow.

“There you are!” I said making my way over to his desk in the corner of his room, “what are you doing? You need to drive me to the airport.” His desk was covered in papers - there were sketches and bright yellow post it notes with reminders and phone numbers scattered in no particular order. His pencil holder was stuffed with different coloured pencil crayons, pens and felt tipped markers.

“I know, I know.” He finished off his writing, put the lid back on his pen and gestured to the wall behind his bed - and I felt as I had just seen a ghost: shock. The Falcon painting was on his wall behind his bed.

“I hung it up, hope you don’t mind. It’s a great piece or art, I knew that book would inspire you.”

The painting was for him anyways, I had just completely forgotten about it with everything going on.

“It’s unfinished though.” I ran my fingers through my hair, knotting out the waves the humidity had created. “I was painting it for your birthday.”

“Well as it is my birthday present I’m going to keep it. And it hardly looks unfinished what else did you need to complete on it?”

I looked up at the painting; the feathers were brown with a tinge of red for effect, the white under body of the falcon. The long sharp talons gripping the olive tree, the branches curling behind it peculiarly. The beak was pointed and sharp and a felt a pang of fear as I imagined the falcon swooping down and catching a mouse or rabbit swallowing is semi-whole.

“Its eyes are unfinished.” I told him. I hadn’t been able to get them right and they looked odd and empty like I couldn’t capture the soul and personality of the creature.

“They look perfect to me; exactly like a falcon’s eyes should look (however they look).”

They did infact look exactly how a falcon’s eyes should look because I had looked in the book he had gotten for me and painted them according to the photo provided.

The eyes of the bird I had seen had not looked empty and imitative. They were unique, and there was something about them I could not capture in the painting - something I didn’t understand and couldn’t explain. They had depth and soul - sometimes I wondered if the book of myths had carried my imagination away with me as usual: these are all just myths I told myself birds are birds: That’s it.



Sitting in the airport waiting for my flight felt unreal - out of body. I had those sometimes: where you feel as if you must be an actor in some sort of twisted movie or living in a parallel universe. My bags had been checked and I only had one small black suitcase because I packed light to Greece. When I was younger I would’ve brought two huge suitcases full of designer clothing, but lately I hadn’t been keeping myself up. My makeup was… nonexistent, and my hair was so tangled from using merely my fingers to brush through it that it resembled a rat’s nest. My father had forced me to clean up before we left after he smelled the stench from a week no showers the only reason I complied was because he threatened not to drive me to the airport and I wasn’t about to miss my flight. The weird thing is I really didn’t care; usually I would be wearing oversized sunglasses or clipping back my frizzy bangs maybe even spritzing some perfume from the samples at duty free under my armpits. But I was completely fine which was unnatural. Maybe I was hoping to become invisible like a bum on the street, where people avoid you out of fear and disgust.

“flight number 445 to Toronto I repeat flight number 445” Standing up slowly I reached for my classic Louis Vuitton bag the only evidence of fashion sense I had left at this point.

In line to board the flight I caught a glimpse of myself in the window and wondered whether Miles would have recognized me if he had been here - or even noticed me at all.