The air in the room was suffocating, so Ethel walked over to the window. The heat seemed to be fading, a gentle breeze flirting with the curtains.
It must be me who feels this stuffiness, she thought, a lump forming in her throat that interrupted her breathing. The sensation was all too familiaran old companion of weakness, emptiness and a flat indifference. Her legs gave way, her mind dimmed as if someone had dimmed a single light switch.
She collapsed onto the bed and almost immediately slipped into sleep. At first the dream was chaoticsnatches of voices, footsteps on a strangers staircase, the glow of a lantern in fog. Then everything cleared. She became a bird, massive white wings unfurledlight as a fresh sigh after long silence, sharp as a cold breath. She rose above a city that glittered below, trembling with countless lights like a scatter of tiny worlds.
The city was unfamiliar, yet it felt strangely like home. Tall shadows of buildings stretched upward as if trying to touch the stars. Between them were bridges, street canyons, a breath of freedom that could not be described, only felt. It was easy there. In that moment she recalled what she could be: not weary, not craving approval, not cramped inside but alive.
Free. She swooped over the city, dived between the rooftops, brushed the cool air with her feathers, and it seemed this would last forever. Then an invisible memory tugged her downwards.
I need to lie down, she heard her own voice, as if from a distance. The world shivered, light splintered, and she began to fallsoft as a featherback to the stifling room where it all began.
She snapped her eyes open as if someone had called her name. The room greeted her with the same stale air, now feeling colder, as if a piece of herself had not returned, staying behind in the city of lights and winged shadows. She rose slowly, sitting on the edge of the bed. Silence pressed in, thick as a record stuck on a single note. The world around her seemed familiar yet foreign, as if the walls had shifted while she slept.
She ran a hand over her chest, to where her wings had throbbed in the dream. Her fingers met only the fabric of her Tshirt.
Strange I almost flew, she whispered. The memory of the dream was already melting, like wet snow on a palm. All that remained was a faint stir of air inside her, barely noticeable but undeniably real.
Then she realized the dream wasnt about flying, nor about a city that could not be named aloud. It was about her fatigue with a life where every step felt like a debt, about the longing for a different sky, about wings that were not fantasy but an ancient, almost forgotten memory.
She held her breath, afraid to scare the feeling away, and murmured into the darkness:
If I ever decide I will return there. I will truly take flight.
In the same instant something quiet answered within her:
You have already begun.
She stood at the window for what felt like an eternity, while night surrendered slowly to dawn. Shadows thinned, the sky brightened, and it seemed the world inhaled before slipping back into its usual bustle. Yet something inside her had already shiftedsubtle, silent, irreversible.
She watched the horizon, where a thin line of light divided the world into before and after. In that instant she no longer feared her own frailties, her emptiness, or the indifferent fatigue that often crashed over her like a wave. She understood: those wings were not born of sleep. They were born of her.
She closed her eyes gently, hand over her heart, feeling a soft thump as if affirming her thoughtquietly, not triumphantly, but surely.
She whispered:
Enough living for others expectations. Enough endurance. Enough waiting for someone to give me permission to be me.
In that moment something unfurled inside hernot wings, but something deeper. It was as if her soul, long crouched in darkness, finally straightened to its full height.
She opened her eyes to a palepink sky, the first morning light resting lightly on her face. Stepping away from the window, the floor seemed to tremble beneath heror perhaps the world did. It mattered not. The important thing was that she no longer felt herself falling.
She inhaled deeplythe first truly free breath she had taken in monthsand declared aloud, calm and clear as a vow:
I will rise. By myself. To the heights that visit me in dreams.
No stifling room would ever again be her cage. She turned, her steps light, almost airy, not because she was in a hurry, but because anyone who discovers their own wings never returns to the person they once were.
And that, she learned, is the only way to truly soar.
