🎃 Imagine this. You are on the balcony of an ice castle. Pushing and pushing against the railing, slowly trudging toward a horizon that never seems to get any closer. Smashing against the frozen structure that is so solid it feels like glass, so solid it feels like it will never break. The time draws near, springtime sunshine causing small drips and fractures. You strike a match and blow the smoke toward the structure that shelters and protects you. Suddenly, you hear a crack, a crunch, a whoosh. There is a sudden give beneath you, and you tumble through the broken, melting hole in your palace. You have FINALLY smashed through the ice castle! It was so slow, and then suddenly so all of a sudden! You'd thought it would take much longer to arrive in this moment! However, in this suddenness you find yourself still somehow underprepared, kicking yourself for the time you squandered by wallowing in the seeming endlessness of your predicament. All this time spent inching toward a finish line. No time at all spent readying for an end. Shit. In midair, you scramble for a parachute. You will reach the ground either way, whether you float like a feather or freefall like a meteor. But after all this time, you decide you'd like to land softly, rather than crash in a tangle of broken limbs and fiery shock. Dear reader, I'm sure this tale has raised a question...? Why would someone you believe to have wings need a parachute? 🎃

-submitted May 14, 2023