Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones.
Thích Nhất Hạnh
ePub
A4Chapter 13
I
WAS PUSHED into the back of a truck, fenced in by so many armed guards that I couldn’t see anything.My family had no idea where I was.
My right wing had a big hole in it, and one of its bones was probably broken.
I was completely outnumbered, going who knew where, to meet my mysterious new enemy, “Mr. Chu.”
I decided to take a nap.
“Excuse me, pardon me,” I murmured, sinking to my knees. Many of the guards immediately hunched down next to me, waiting for the daring escape I’d make by, what, slithering out between their legs?
Instead, I pushed and shouldered and kneed these things away and curled up on my left side, keeping my injured wing carefully on top. It hurt like heck, a throbbing, burning pain that reminded me with every beat of my heart that I couldn’t fly.
The guards didn’t know what to make of this. I guessed they hadn’t been programmed to shrug their shoulders or make a “Whatever” face.
They weren’t Erasers. They weren’t Flyboys. They weren’t the increasingly advanced robot soldiers that the diabolical brains-on-a-stick criminal known as the Uber-Director had created.
Heck, I didn’t know what they were. Just—killing machines with delicate heads and ankles. Kind of geeky. Machine geeks. Hey! M-Geeks.
Good. Now they had a name, at least in my head.
I was very tired. And I went to sleep.
