Take Flight

Take Flight
The cerulean sky beckoned to me alluringly, stronger than ever before.
For the umpteenth time I had a grip on the railing of the balcony, leaning a bit forward on my toes like I was about to take flight. In fact, that was exactly what I wished I could do – zip through the clouds like an arrow from a bow, the delicious sense of complete freedom at my fingertips. I was drawn to the sky and the freedom it suggests like a fly to the flames.
The sky had turned from sapphire to a delicate shade of forget-me-not, wispy clouds floating lazily across it. It is a curious colour, the cloud, I decided dreamily, drumming my fingers on the wall. When the sky is azure, for instance, the clouds are a flawless pristine. But just wait for the sky to turn a soft baby blue. The clouds change to a creamy white, soft and enticing as ever.
That was my longing when I was a child. My ideas changed when my teacher made the class watch a documentary about birds.
The eagle made a graceful swoop and extended its wings, hot on a sparrow’s tail. It snapped its beaks viciously, then made a sudden launch forwards. The eagle’s sharp talons yanked the sparrow out of the air, and it was over.
It was perhaps by then that I suddenly got it.
Freedom is not about where you are. It is about power. When you are powerful enough to survive anywhere you possess complete freedom.
By then my longing is not to be in the skies, though the idea still attracted me. It is to become powerful.