Dancing In The Wind

• Alexandra Gerraty, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2016

I sat on one of those park benches. You know, the ones that hurt if you sit on them too long. The bench was next to a big hill that everyone called a cliff. I was so close to the cliff I could see all the way down the rocky surface and the moss on those bits that jut out, way down to the big clearing. Then I saw it. Years ago, that’s when I saw it. A beautiful swallow, a bird, just dancing in the wind. Swooping, diving, twirling, turning. I loved it, because I had never seen a bird like that. A bird that didn’t care about what was going on around it. It just danced in the wind. I watched that bird for three hours straight, and I noticed that it had a red stripe down one of its wings. Garnet. I vowed I would remember that bird forever. After a while Garnet flew into the trees, out of my sight. I missed her. I went home after that, without anything better to do.
51 years later
Don’t ask me what my name is. I can’t remember. Doctors say I had a stroke. Maybe, I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything of my childhood, or anything else, for that matter. Right now I’m at a cliff, big hill. There is one of those big green chairs at the edge. I sit down there. I’m so close to the edge I can see all the way down the grassy cliff face to the meadow below. I wait there, for a few hours. I don’t know what I’m waiting for. Something to happen, I guess. And then I see it. A beautiful swallow, the bird, just dancing in the wind. Swooping, diving, twirling, turning. It has a red stripe down on of its wings. Garnet. And it all comes back to me. My name is Mary. When I was 6 I saw that bird, that same one, I think. It saved my life. I remember.