Oh, the pigeon. He remembered the grain. He remembered the crumbs that fell from the feet of hurrying people. He remembered the warmth of the ledge where he had hatched his eggs, and the flutter of his wings as he soared into the gray sky. He remembered freedom.

And then... then everything blurred. The world turned upside down, becoming vast and oppressive. Feathers were replaced by rough fabric, and claws became clumsy fingers. He awoke in a human body.

He didn't know who he was, where he came from. It was a vague, aching feeling of loss. The loss of the sky, the wind, the flock. He looked at his hands, trembling and weak, and saw them as a pathetic parody of wings.

The city he once knew from a bird's-eye view now pressed down on him with its dirty walls. The people he had pecked at ignored him. He became one of them, lost in the gray mass, but at the same time, he was a stranger, forever separated from his own nature.

He tried to take flight. He raised his arms and flapped them like wings. But he only provoked ridicule and pity. He shouted, making guttural, incomprehensible sounds, trying to reach out to his own people, but all he heard in response was