By Brent Rowland

He washed up on our shore in the morning, a young man with small wings clinging to his slender back. His skin was sticky and his legs mangled, broken in several places. By late afternoon he was hooked up to the normal machines. We gently pinned his wings open, like two old coats, and placed heaters beneath each one. We checked his heart, x-rayed his legs, drew his blood, and found him closer to death than life. He lay there pale and extinguished, surrounded by a roomful of equipment—the ballast to pull him from whatever tragedy he had suffered.

In the evening I stayed with the boy while the others went for food. Sunlight from the window crept up his face. I was tired, watching the light in his hair, when he opened his eyes right into mine. They were clear and blue and troubled. The boy didn’t move at all. He only flexed his wings and looked at me. For the first time that day I thought of my son, and among the machines, all the tubes and monitors, I bent over and hugged the pathetic boy. I put my cheek against his and held him for a moment in the sunlight.

I wandered down the beach after that, when the others returned. These things happen while someone eats or walks along. Everything turns naturally away. But there was something amazing, and the next morning the boy was gone.

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Brent Rowland has worked as a cinematographer, shooting films that have appeared infestivals around the world. He’s into Arundhati Roy, Bill Evans, desi food, defunct pay phones,desert nights, art house theaters, and the cinema of Wong Kar-Wai. He has a BA in English and an MFA in Film and Media Arts.