Worth Waiting For

They chose Earth. Chose a human child.

Though her mind began dark, she, my host, became my home.

As she grew, I learned how her brain worked completely, every single firing synapse that surrounded me.

I even stepped her back off a cliff once.

That was a fight.

She didn’t want to stay. They wanted to extract me, to let her do her thing, find me another host.

I refused.

That was then.

Matured, I return to Earth in a form of my choosing, feathers soft and powerful.

She’s waiting at that cliff edge.

We’ll soar this time.

Together.

© 2021 Rebecca Glaessner

July 8, 2021, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story that features feathers. It can be a single feather or more. Where did the feather come from? Does it hold meaning to the character or story? Go where the prompt leads!

Submissions now closed. Read the full collection here.

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19 thoughts on “Worth Waiting For”

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  2. Pingback: Feathers « Carrot Ranch Literary Community

  3. I really liked this one. Like others said, it was beautiful, but I appreciated the connection between the narrator and the host. At first I assumed the narrator, like the host, was female but after reading it again I thought about the narrator being male. Or non-binary. There’s a lapse of time between the narrator refusing to leave the host and their return in feathered form. Why did they return? Why was the girl who began dark still waiting to jump? It was love in some form that transcends our understanding/connection of love. This one was worth waiting for :)

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    1. Wow Michael, thank you for sharing your heartfelt thoughts on this one. I’m glad you enjoyed it. I do try to portray the narrator’s species as non-binary, though it’s hard to write a non-binary character in English without it feeling stilted. Too hard for 99 words. It’s great you actively thought of this in the narrator’s character without me explicitly mentioning it. I feel like I’m winning ground on that front. And yes, all valid questions. Who was she? What comes after? Love is incomprehensible and often misunderstood. It’s such a powerful force. Thanks for stopping by!

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  4. Rebecca, your story makes me rethink the idea of guardian angels — what if they are parasites in our minds? Whoa. You write such sharp sci-fi that even an impossible twist is plausible. Then you add the emotion and overcoming. Well done!

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    1. Thanks Charli! I’ve been reading Michio Kaku’s non-fiction science novels and he delves into the quantum world and consciousness as energy passing through space (in plausible, realistic theories – he’s a career physicist, working on string theory right now, and a novelist to boot!). By his logic, angels could be real, just different to how we understand them, they could be other beings who’ve advanced so far they no longer need their physical bodies and use their time to care for other kinds like us. And there could actually be a grand consciousness beyond the universe that orchestrates the energies of existence. It’s fascinating and wondrous stuff!

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  5. There was a movie I saw a long time ago… I can’t remember the name – I tried looking it up and didn’t have any success. The girl ended up at a monastery on top of a mountain. Her friend wanted her to stay with him. She was very conflicted with her family responsibilities and wanting to be ‘free’. It was a cliff hanger though… because the girl jumped of the wall of the monastery and ‘flew’. We are left with not knowing if she landed safely and was able to change her circumstance or, well the alternative…

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    1. That’s some glowing praise Hugh, you’ve got me grinning ear to ear. I love that you found this piece beautiful. I love sci-fi for its potential to be so. I find it hard to reach for those parts of it though, but this one showed up, and I’m grateful it did.

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      1. You did a great job, Rebecca. Whenever I hear or read the word’ science fiction’, I automatically think of adventure, terror, thriller, horror, futuristic, alien. I did think the theme tune to the movie E.T was beautiful, but I guess that doesn’t count.

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        1. ET is a sci-fi classic! It surely counts. But I understand where you’re coming from. Some of the first onscreen sci-fi I saw was Stargate (SG1), which is rich with themes of friendship and care beneath the adventure-military storyline, so I think that played a part in how I view sci-fi. I’m only just getting through the Alien and Predator worlds now, the horror/thriller side fascinates me but they’re only strong stories due to the human connection (whether amongst humans or side by side with predator aliens). Sometimes those movies can be beautiful too I think (despite the gore).

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