Wings Torn and Glistening

By Peter Bowden


 Let me tell you a story—

They found her in the shallows, tangled in lilies and moonlight. Wings torn and glistening with the last blush of twilight, her breath was shallow but steady, as though even in ruin she remembered how to dream. The forest had grown quiet around her, watching. Trees leaned in with hushes on their lips, and the creek flowed soft as a lullaby, wrapping her in its cool silver arms.

No one knew where she came from. Not the owl who watched from his branch, nor the old turtle who had seen many such falls. But they all felt it—that something had been broken in the world, and something else had been set free. Her wings, veined in coral and blood, shimmered like cracked glass, each fracture telling a story too ancient for words.

Later, when the night deepened and the stars stirred themselves awake, a boy with a lantern wandered into the woods. He didn’t mean to find her. He just followed the sound of weeping water and the hush of leaves that knew something he didn’t. And when he knelt beside her, she opened one eye—not fully, just enough to know he wasn’t afraid.

"You're late," she whispered, voice like wind through reeds. "But not too late."

He didn’t ask what she meant. He just set the lantern down beside her broken wings, and stayed until the first breath of morning warmed the dew and chased the shadows back to where they belonged.

And that’s how it begins—how something once fallen began to rise. Not with triumph or fanfare, but with quiet company, with the kindness of staying when all else flees.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Woman Who Folded Her Way to Glory

By Peter Bowden
Image
She folded t-shirts at first. Part-time, under fluorescent lights that flickered like indecisive lightning. The shirts were always the wrong size or the wrong color or folded the wrong way, but she smiled anyway. People asked her where the bathrooms were. Sometimes she told them. Sometimes she pointed vaguely, just for sport. It was the beginning of something, though no one—not even she—knew what. In time, she went full-time. Gave tours with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for puppies or preachers. Her voice could bounce off stone and charm a bored teenager. She wrote press releases that made people care about sidewalk chalk festivals and the grand opening of the third best coffee shop in town. She remembered birthdays. Brought cake. Brought joy. She once stapled her blouse to a budget report and didn't notice until after the staff meeting. It became legend. She was that kind of legend. And now—after 29 years, 10,713 days, 4 broken office chairs, 113 bad hair days, 7 crises...
Read more

She Was Always Sad

By Peter Bowden
Image
She was always sad, though most people never noticed. She laughed at the right times, nodded when spoken to, and never once caused a scene. But there was a heaviness behind her eyes, like clouds that never moved, just hovered quietly. At the coffee shop, she always took the seat by the window, looking out as if waiting for someone who never came. The truth was, she had once loved with the kind of fullness that makes you believe you’ll never be alone again. A hand in hers, a voice calling her name from across a quiet room, the warmth of another body curled beside her in the coldest months. And then one day, the world cracked open, and he was gone. Just like that. No storm. No explosion. Just silence where there had once been everything. So she carried that silence. Not with drama or despair, but with the quiet dignity of someone who had known something precious and lost it. Her sadness wasn’t bitterness—it was love, still alive, with nowhere to go. And so she let it live inside her, s...
Read more

Things Are Quiet

By Peter Bowden
Image
The house was quiet now. The mornings came and went like old friends who had grown tired of the visit. He would sit at the kitchen table with his hands around a coffee cup that had long gone cold, staring at the empty chair across from him. The ache was not loud, nor did it rage. It sat in his chest like a stone sunk to the riverbed, unmoved by the current of passing days. He thought about the way she would hum softly while drying the dishes, the sound slipping through the cracks of his memory like sunlight through a dusty window. He missed her without ceremony, without grand displays. It was a dull, persistent throb that never asked for attention but never left him alone. Sometimes he would walk the old path down to the river, where they once threw crumbs to the ducks and talked about small things that seemed bigger then. The air was thick with the scent of pine, and he could hear the water moving over the rocks, just as it always had. It made him angry sometimes—how the world did not...
Read more