Almost 50

It's fall, and the birds are flying north outside my bedroom window. Lying in bed, I can see the sky, a sliver of it beneath the Venetian blind. As I open and close my eyes, the birds keep coming. It is a large assembly, a flock gathered for migration, traveling with purpose and speed. But they're going the wrong way. Groggily, just to be sure, I orient my inner compass. No doubt about it, the birds are flying north for the winter.

I want to climb to the rooftop and flap my arms. "Go back!" I want to call. "Turn around!" The dark, feathery bullets continue to zip past, punctuated now and again by moments of blank sky. Every time I think I've seen the last of them, more birds appear. Flying north, the wrong way. It is nature turned upside down, and I am powerless against it, their destiny, and, so it would seem, my own.