Wing to Wing

I am a bird. I feel at home in the sky. It had taken a few tries, but now that my glider was the right size I was looping from thermal to thermal and riding the rising hot air across the valley. The land beneath me, pastoral and serene, rolled slowly by. My hands gripped the cool metal steering rods and I turned smoothly into a long banked turn. The gentle curve in my trajectory brought me back over a large dark field that had been producing a column of hot air all morning, and I felt the wings of the glider heave and lift as they caught the updraft.

I wasn’t alone though. This time I was sharing the thermal with a hawk. I couldn’t tell what kind it was from this distance, but it noticed me and flapped upwards, annoyed to be sharing. I floated along, looking down at the grass and cows below. A strange tearing sound to my left shook me from my aimless daydreaming. I looked at the wing and saw there was a tear in it. The hawk had dive-bombed right through the fabric!

It was below me now, flapping back up to gain altitude. I tried my best to manage the draft of the thermal, but I was no match for a creature with real wings. Then I realized—I was losing altitude because of the rip.

The hawk, above me now, dove again, this time tearing a bigger hole in the other wing. My chest tightened up and my hands started sweating. I pulled down into a dive. I needed to get on the ground before this bird tore my wings to ribbons. I had plenty of time. At this rate I would be safe well before it could dive through enough times to knock me out of the sky.

The hawk had realized this as well. I felt it hit the wing a third time, but it wasn’t diving right through. It hooked its talons into the fabric and pulled, tearing a gaping void into the wing. I had no control now; the glider dipped sharply to the side and entered a steep spiral. I struggled against the metal of the steering, but it was immovable at this speed. The fields raced up to meet me. The hawk made a final attack, striking the only fabric left intact. I was in free fall. I am not a bird.