The First Soaring of the Robin

Boars Tusk is a literary journal publishing poetry, fiction, nonfiction, artwork, and photography by Western Wyoming Community College students and residents of Sweetwater County. The journal provides a forum for students and community members to showcase their work and gives the journal's staff members hands-on experience in producing, editing, designing, and publicizing the journal, skills that will be valuable in the workplace. If you would like to submit your own creative work, learn more here.

For more information about Boar's Tusk, click here.
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The glass sliding door of a balcony slams shut, a sound quickly lost in the cutting autumn wind. A wispy teenager emerges and stares at a bony sapling whose leaves have already been and gone. Rowan’s gaunt wrists fall out of sweatpants that have suddenly turned too large and hang off their hips. Pale knuckles grip the freezing wrought iron that acts as the only barrier between the balcony and freefall.

Rowan takes a deep breath. Then another.

Their skin starts to prickle, dimming in color as they stare out from the balcony. They see the patchy jungle of suburban sprawl with disappointment, every tree and bush only serving as decoration for the harsh silhouettes of Pinecone Hollow. Little specks of green try to disguise the reality of a landscape long given up to industrialization.

Eventually their gaze lands on one tree, a tall cottonwood, its leaves singing in the wind. They breathe again. The air smells of spice and gasoline. Rowan looks down at their feet, their toes turning thin and fingernails growing pointed, regressing from their plate-like shape into long claws.

Rowan’s breath stutters with hesitation, and then they take a step, and another, and
climb onto a chair and up to the railing. The cold metal sting against their skin makes their breath stutter.

A lump forms in their throat. The sheer drop from the balcony reminds them of their
first time riding a bike. Of a small weeping child, clutching a sprained ankle as their father looks away, on the phone, unhurried. Of the stale scent of alcohol in a stuffy car leading them to nowhere good. Anger flows through their chest, out with the next breath and away on the wind to somewhere else.

Rowan looks with a mixture of spite and determination at the swaying branches of the
cottonwood. Their eyes lock onto a certain branch, a thicker one high above.

Rowan’s feet tighten on the railing. With the anxiety and rage still curling in their chest,
Rowan exhales sharply, and their breath is lost in the wind.

They reach out their arms as the sounds of low crackling starts to rattle throughout the balcony, interspersed with little gasps and grunts of effort. Rowan starts to change. Their skin shivers and stretches and starts ripping at the seams as feathers burst out from within. Blood bubbles in the back of their throat, filling their senses with the taste of iron and pain. Their clothes sag atop them like a shriveling cocoon, sloughing off their frame as their body splits and shrinks into a tiny form. Out like a butterfly Rowan crawls out of their band tee husk. What glares out at the landscape is now a vague approximation of a robin.

Rowan heaves and croaks as they settle again on the railing. Two great wings, much
more akin to a hawk’s than a songbird’s, flap in an attempt to control the air. They cling to the balcony with talons sharp as nails as they test catching the wind. Their now tiny heart beats like a running rabbit’s footsteps, their chest heaving breaths like crashing leaves. All too soon they yearn for the freedom of flight. And all too soon, their claws let go of the balcony and their wings stretch out wide to soar. They are instantly tugged off course by a riptide of cold wind.

Rowan shrieks as their perception swirls and tumbles. The memory of that damn bike
returns. All they can see now is the disappointed face of their father. Their breath comes in and out in shallow breaths as they wait for the impact.

The bush was softer than the hard concrete just a few inches away, but the sharp
branches cut at Rowan’s thin feathers. Pain flares up along their spine, and finally Rowan can see again. They are surrounded by brambles, weaving past and poking into their flesh. The robin hacks at their twiggy prison, scrambling free from the biting plant. They had fallen into the bush just at the foot of their apartment building. How disappointing.

The wind cuts through just the same as before, but the cottonwood stands so much
further away. Without the benefit of height, they will have to take a different approach.
Rowan shuffles forward, stumbling over their odd bird feet. Walking was still a struggle, no matter the form they took. The fastest movement they could manage was hopping. Flying will be easier. At least they hope.

Now they stand at the edge of the threadbare garden. The copse of trees masquerading as decoration do not block the way forward. Rowan lifts their wings again, feeling the cool air circle below their feathers and through their skin. They can almost imagine gliding, high above the cityline and far, far away from here, if not for the cold, hard concrete beneath their toes.

They remember their father once saying that a good, industrious city could convince
anyone to leave the countryside. All the more Rowan feels the need to flee from the man-made things that betrayed them.

Rowan flaps their wings again, feeling the slightest hint of leverage. They flap quicker,
hoping all the extra effort would simply bring them into the air. It did not. They leap forward, flailing their wings like a madman, looking longingly at the air above and wishing for it to take them up in its cool arms. Still, they feel dirt and grass below their feet and smell smoke from their neighbor’s filthy apartment. Alongside it comes the saccharine smell of a home-cooked meal that will never be for them.

Birds chatter far overhead on a telephone pole; doves, starlings, ravens, and many more all together. How tall and imposing a structure, only to be reclaimed and used by animals. Rowan wishes to join them. They must keep trying.

Nearby, a sparrow picks at the ground. Rowan croaks in its direction. Frightened, it takes off into the air immediately. Their eyes fixate on the bird’s wings. Feathers curl around the air, up and down, weaving the wind around itself to capture movement. Rowan stares at their own wings. They are too pointy, too flat. Not nearly good enough.

They would not impress their father. But, really, nothing would.

Bones and tendons crackle as they rearrange their body to fit their perception. They
taste blood again in the back of their throat, their body objecting to being treated so harshly. Yet, soon enough the wings are remodeled. Not perfect, but better. Rowan leapt again and let the air travel below their wings.

Their feathers dance around the wind. They feel floaty with elation as the ground below
them becomes distant, faint, and altogether gone as their flapping wings carry them up, higher, flying just above the concrete but rising faster. The lowest branches of the aspen trees pass their sight, then the bushes, the streetlamps, and the drab tiling of the rooftops. They see that cottonwood grow close, dangerously close, and pull away as they reach up towards that lofty branch.

The world wobbles as their sharp talons cling onto that bucking branch. Up here the
birds are so much closer and they can almost pretend they are just another little robin among the flock, a sign of spring and regrowth like the rest. The fantasy does not live long. Rowan is too sharp, too loud, too broken to join them, and the sky still beckons.

Their wings flap again, large glittering leaves falling away, and they leave behind every
house and sidewalk and paved road that reminds them of their father. Soon they can only see the deep grey sky stretching onward.

Rowan howls and wails into that vast nothingness. Even as rain begins to fall and
splatter across their oily black and orange feathers, they know that nothing from that city can touch them anymore. Low hanging clouds hug them like vast cotton blankets. The wind parts easily to make way just for them. The rain batters against their rotten core and washes away the sickness, slowly, so slowly.

Far in the distance they can see trees, real trees, ones not cleared for urban
development or planted as a courtesy for homeowners. They could see the canopy acting as a shield, keeping the city and its evils at bay. They imagine falling into that forest and losing themself eternally in the woods.

The balcony lights had long since darkened when Rowan returned. They splinter back
into the form of a wispy teenager, close the glass sliding door as quietly as possible, pass through the apartment silent as a ghost, and avoid the creaky floorboards. They close the door to their room and burrow beneath an old patchy quilt. No one in the house would speak of this day. As Rowan lulls deep into slumber, they dream of flying away and never returning.

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About the Author
Minty Allred is an aspiring creative who is working towards a degree in art history, museology, library sciences or something similar. They write and draw in their free time in hopes of publishing something someday, but hasn't gotten around to taking that goal seriously yet.