Imprinted on pap…

Spring 1971

Be with the chicks as they fledge. And when they are ready to fly, send them an angel who can show them how and where to migrate, their only hope.*

The ‘message’ arrived in a windowed envelope, with that empty, official, staged look. Just her name, Lina S. Berg, behind an iridescent, soap bubble, butterfly wing window.
Even if the envelope had been personally addressed to her – in courier lettering that correctly spelled out her name and current mailing address – it was plain, universal, white, ultralight airmail. Who, but some young marketing consultant for a desperate publishing house might consider it worthwhile to make use of a cheap mailing list to promote their book club. Mass consignments, subscription offers sent out to an entire generation. Had it been a bank statement, a subpoena, a communiqué from the Internal Revenue Service, or a call to jury duty, there certainly would have been a sender. Nor did it have a commemorative stamp licked by a friend, just a barcode and U.S. Postage Paid, on an otherwise blank slate, Tabula Rasa.
Rather than throw it into the wastepaper basket, as any person in their right mind would have done, she was instinctively captivated, as though her survival depended upon it. In order to clear some space on her desk to write checks, pay more bills, and record a recurring dream before she set the table for dinner, she began folding it, into a crane. When she had completed her tasks for the day, she tapped on its beak, and watched it curtsy, before it began to rock of its own accord, and then take off.

Some glad morning, when this life is o’er, I’ll fly away.

* See blog entry. Fri Oct 23: “Once she showed me a photo of a goose in a silver locket she wore around her neck. Said the goose had been silly enough to think she was its mother. Blamed it on her father when that the goose ended up in a silver terrine on the family dinner table. So much for secret loves, and civilized family meals. Otherwise her lips stayed pursed as a roach clip.”

“Her hands were like broken wings, I suppose, and she knew it was best to keep them still. Hurts less that way, and probably heals faster.”