Bears Discover Fire

the light from his shining wings… Suddenly, I stopped and walked back to the doctor’s office. This was no good; my thoughts were clouded with vision.

“Doctor,” I said, “what will happen to the wings after they are removed? Will you take them off separately, or together? Will they stay bright and clean, or will they shrivel up and die?”

“Why,” said the doctor, “we can do whatever you like with them. They will come off separately, and can easily be preserved. I had thought that you might want to give them to a museum or something. Or perhaps you might want to keep them; George could hang them on the wall of his room as a sort of trophy.”

Well, I had beat around the bush too long. I went home. “Katie,” I said, “the doctor says we should cut off George’s wings—have them removed.” She didn’t say anything. “The minister says so, too, and so do I.” I told her about how he would be an outcast, an emotional cripple. “He won’t always be a baby,” I said. “Look at the future.”

She was holding him and watching me curiously as I spoke. I was watching him, older, still running in the field of short grass. But there was the other, the thin boy with dark eyes and great white wings. “Don’t you see, Katie, he is alone!” It was hard for me to think; he was looking back at me, out of his dream. “He is a cripple. He can’t run, can’t dance, can’t even sit down!” He was on a high hill, I could see that now, with the sea behind him. Katie looked toward the ocean, then back at me. As she began to speak, George began to turn into the wind, his wings trembling as he lifted them over his head…

“Oh no,” said Katie. “He’s not a cripple—he can fly!” We watched him fall forward and then up; as his feet lifted off the thick grass, his wings, held out, began to stir. Katie laughed: “Why should he want to ride a bus? Why should he walk when he can ride and float on the air?” Katie and I watched him all the way out of sight. Another watched him too: the boy running in the field suddenly stopped and looked up. The last light of the sun caught a flash of white, way up, and then the boy on the ground was lost in the great shadow of wings that covered half the hill.

The wind was suddenly quiet; the low sound of the water came in. Katie and I looked up as the gulls’ wings stirred and they fell back toward the sea. Then it was dark; the wind came up again and George started to cry. Katie began to rock him and smiled at me across the room.

When spring came, we went back to the house on the hill. We stayed on through the next winter, and the next.

George learned to walk before I tried to teach him to fly; then, during the third summer, I would take him out on the side of the hill and toss him into the air. At first he would fall with a wild flutter and thump, laughing. By the time cold weather came, he could rise off the ground by himself and stay up for a few seconds. By that time, he had a baby sister. Her wings were red, like fire.

NEXT

“NEXT!”

“We want to get a marriage license, please.”

“Name?”

“Johnson, Akisha.”

“Age?”

“Eighteen.”

“Groom’s name?”

“Jones, Yusef.”

“Yusef? You with him? Honey, you kids are in the wrong line.”

“We are?”

“Try that line over there, on the other side of the Pepsi machine. And good luck. You’re gonna need it, child. Next!”

“NEXT!”

“We want to apply for a marriage license.”

“For who, might I ask?”

“For us. For me and him.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“She told us to get in this line. I guess because—”

“I can’t give you a marriage license. He’s black.”

“I know, but I heard that if we get a special permit or something—”

“What you’re talking about is a same-race certificate. But I can’t give you one, and I wouldn’t if I could. The very idea of blacks marrying each other, when—”

“So why’d she tell us to get in this line?”

“This line is for same-race certificate applications.”

“So what do we have to do to get one of those?”

“Under the law, just ask for it. Even though there’s something disgusting about—”

“So look, lady, I’m asking.”

“Here. Fill this out and return it to window A21.”

“Does that mean we have to start in line all over again?”

“What do you think? Next!”

“NEXT!”

“Hello, I’m not even sure we’re in the right line. We want to get one of those special certificates. To get married.”

“A same-race certificate. You’re in the right line. But under the Equal Access Provisions of the Melanin Conservation Act, we can’t just hand those out. You have to have an Ozone Waiver to even apply for one.”

“I already have the application filled out. See? That white girl over there told me about it.”

“She told you wrong. What you filled out is the application for the waiver. But you can’t get the waiver without twelve and a half minutes of counseling.”

“Can’t you just stamp it or whatever? We’ve already been standing in three lines for hours, and my feet are —”

“Excuse me? Maybe you know more about my job than I do?”

“No.”

“Good. Then listen up. I’m trying to be helpful. What I’m going to give you is an appointment slip to see the marriage counselor. Take it to Building B and give it to the clerk at the first desk.”

“We have to go outside?”

“There’s a covered walkway. But stay to the left, several panels are missing. Next!”

“NEXT!”

“We have an appointment slip.”

“For what?”

“Counseling. To get a waiver, so we can apply for a certificate, or something. So we can get married.”

“Sit down over there. The Sergeant Major will call you when he’s ready.”

“The Sergeant Major? We were supposed to see a marriage counselor.”

“The Sergeant Major is the Marriage Counselor. Has been ever since the Declaration of Marital Law, under the Ozone Emergency Act. Where have you been?”

“We don’t get married every day.”

“Are you getting smart with me?”

“I guess not.”

“I hope not. Take a seat, in those hard chairs, until I call you. Next!”