Wings. A Bedtime Story From My Dreams To Yours

This story arrived in a dream—unannounced, luminous—and now it is returned to its place of origin through your listening. For 40 minutes, the tale unfurls like a secret told at the edge of night, threaded with gentle music that knows the language of rest. Drift with it. Slip between the layers of this world, back into the dreaming that has been waiting for you all along. By morning, you may find yourself quietly restored.

Transcript

Welcome,

I am Tess.

What you are about to hear is not a story in the ordinary sense,

It is a return.

These tales were not written so much as received,

Delivered to me in the night,

Pressed into the soft clay of dreams,

Whispered by that ancient intelligence that visits us only when we stop demanding explanations.

I dreamt them,

And now,

Through your listening,

They are going back where they came from,

Back into dreamspace,

Back into the great circulating dark.

Dreams are discerning creatures,

Many arrive dressed in the borrowed clothes of the day,

Faces we recognize,

Stories we rehearse,

Headlines echoing in sleep's corridors.

These are modest dreams,

They ask for nothing and dissolve politely by morning.

I let them go,

But then there are others,

They arrive with weight,

With insistence.

These are not dreams that wish to be understood,

These are dreams that wish to be witnessed.

And it is only when I step back from the clamor of the world,

When I stand barefoot in the quiet field of inner listening,

That such dreams find me,

In that narrow borderland where lucid living leans towards lucid dreaming.

The veil thins,

And through it,

Something ancient peers in.

Still,

I confess,

I am often distracted.

The world to me is loud,

Insistent,

Its dramas seep into sleep,

Staining dreams with borrowed fears and counterfeit urgency.

Yet even then,

Even in that crowded dark,

There sometimes appears a dream that does not argue,

Does not instruct,

And does not explain.

It simply opens its hands and says,

Come closer.

Now let me tell you of one such dream.

A bird-headed woman stands on the fractured horizon,

The wind plucking at her ragged feathers,

Her curved beak slicing the air like a blade honed on the whetstone of sorrow.

She is the child of an unfinished thought,

A half-born thing spat out by a careless god,

Her existence held together by the frayed edges of myth and mockery.

Before her talons ever grazed the earth,

She existed only as a dream in the fevered mind of a creator who never meant to create her.

A craftsman poured himself into her form,

Half-bird,

Half-human,

Driven by creative forces even he did not understand.

His name was Mahan the Forgotten.

He lived in a place that was not a place,

A shifting pocket of existence at the edge of creation,

Where the world frayed and unraveled into the void.

Here he shaped wonders from the strands of lost possibilities.

His hands,

Gnarled as ancient roots,

Could conjure life from the rubble of discarded dreams.

But his works were always fractured,

Always incomplete,

As though the very act of creation itself was tainted by some cosmic flaw.

Mahan had been called a god once,

Long ago,

In a time when his creation still obeyed him and his name was whispered in prayers.

But time wore away his divinity like waves eroding a cliff.

Now he was merely a shadow,

A forgotten artisan piecing together fragments of forgotten worlds.

And so it was in the aching silence of his realm that he began to sculpt her.

It began as a whim,

A compulsion born of loneliness and a peculiar longing.

Mahan's mind was troubled by a dream of wings,

Great and terrible,

Shadowing a sky that no longer existed.

They were neither bird nor angel wings,

But something liminal,

Something straddling the thin veil between the mortal and the divine.

He awoke with the dream seared into his mind and knew he must create it,

Though he could not fathom why.

The bird-headed woman began with a skeleton of starlight,

Her bones luminous and fragile,

Strung together with filaments of forgotten melodies.

Her body grew from the clay of a world that had perished before time began,

Molded by hands that trembled with both passion and doubt.

Her feathers were feathers,

Not at first,

But shards of obsidian,

Sharp and gleaming,

Until Mahan softened them with the breath of a summer storm.

Even then they were too jagged and too small for her to ever fly.

Her head,

Though,

Her head was always a bird's,

Proud and unyielding,

With a beak that curved like the crescent moon.

But her eyes,

Her eyes were human,

And therein lay the tragedy of her being.

Those eyes,

Dark as the abyss,

Yet shimmering with the light of all she would come to see,

Stared back at Mahan as he were.

They seemed to question him,

To accuse him even as he shaped her.

Why are you making me?

They seemed to ask.

What purpose am I to be?

I don't know,

Mahan muttered aloud one day,

Startled by the weight of her silent gaze.

His voice cracked like dry branches underfoot,

Echoing through the emptiness of his workshop.

I never know.

But he continued,

Driven by the compulsion that had seized him,

Until she stood before him,

Complete and yet incomplete,

A creature caught between worlds.

Her body was human in shape but twisted,

Her hands bearing the shadow of talons,

Her back too rigid for flight.

Her feathers shimmered with a beauty that hurt to behold,

But they bore no power,

No promise of disguise.

You are,

He began,

But the words failed him.

What was she?

Not human,

Not bird.

A mistake,

A masterpiece,

A nightmare.

He could not decide.

When the time came to give her life,

Mahan hesitated.

In his long years of shaping and creating,

He had made countless beings,

But each one carried with it a shard of himself,

A piece of his dwindling essence.

To bring her to life would cost him dearly,

And yet the alternative,

Letting her remain a stillborn dream,

Felt unbearable.

If I do this,

He whispered,

His voice trembling.

Will you curse me?

Will you rise to hate me in your confusion of what is?

The bird-headed woman did not answer.

She could not answer,

For she was not yet alive.

But her eyes,

Those haunting human eyes,

Seemed to flash with something beyond his understanding.

And so Mahan breathed into her,

His breath carrying the remnants of his once-divine power.

It rushed into her nostrils,

Into her lungs,

Into the hollow spaces of her being,

Filling her with the spark of existence.

She shuddered,

Her feathers quivered,

Her hands clawed at the air as if testing the boundaries of reality.

Her beak opened,

And she gasped,

A raw,

Guttural sound that echoed through the void.

And then she screamed,

A sound that tore through Mahan's soul like a jagged blade.

It is done,

He said,

His voice heavy with exhaustion and sorrow.

You are alive,

Whatever that may mean.

She turned her gaze to him,

And for a moment there was a flicker of recognition,

A fragile connection between creator and creation.

But it was fleeting.

Her eyes darkened,

And her feathers bristled as she took her first halting steps.

Mahan watched to explore the edges of his workshop,

Her movements awkward and uncertain.

An ache bloomed in his chest,

A sense of loss he could not explain.

She was beautiful,

Yes,

But she was also wrong,

A living testament to his own imperfection.

You will hate me,

He murmured,

More to himself than to her.

They always do.

But she did not hate him,

Not at first.

Instead,

She seemed to pity him,

Her gaze softening as she observed his frail,

Hunched form.

Why did you make me?

She asked,

A voice a strange harmony of human and avian tones.

Mahan looked at her,

Tears welling in his ancient eyes.

Because I dreamed of you,

He said simply,

Because I could not help myself.

It was not enough for her,

It could never be enough.

In the days that followed,

Her restlessness grew.

She paced the boundaries of his workshop,

Staring out into the void beyond,

Longing for something she could not name.

Her pity curdled into anger as the confines of her body pressed down upon her.

You have made me a monster,

She said one day,

Her voice butter.

You have given me wings that cannot fly,

A soul that cannot rest.

What am I supposed to do with this half-life?

And then one day she was gone.

She tore through the walls of his workshop,

Her talons rending the fabric of his realm,

And vanished into the void before he could tell her that if she left,

She would have no memory of her creation at the hands of Mahan the Forgotten.

And so the bird-headed woman began her journey,

Her steps faltering but determined,

As she sought meaning in a body that had no place for her.

After decades of searching,

Her world mourned the end of yet another day.

A day awash in the debris of confusion,

A weary wreck in the storm of her divided soul,

Forever in search of purpose in a body she hated.

In her head,

A storm of memories of things that never were,

Echoes of voices that never spoke.

She's a labyrinth of selves,

A hymn without a melody,

A child without a name,

A bird without the grace of flight,

A being without a purpose.

A question mark scrawled in the margins of creation.

She walks forward,

The ground beneath her talons splintering like glass.

And then,

A voice,

Sharp as citrus,

Bright as brass,

Cuts through her reverie.

You're up to your neck in it,

He says,

Jolting her from her internal storm.

What?

She snaps,

Startled,

Furious,

Like a child yanked from a deep well of imagination.

Thoughts,

Darling,

Thoughts,

His voice chuckles.

Before her,

A man,

If man is the right word,

Leaps,

Twirls,

And prances as if tugged by invisible strings.

His limbs all akimbo,

His voice a crooked melody of mischief.

They're gobbling you up,

Those thoughts,

He continues,

Cocking his head and casting her a wink.

A mad parade of drunken imps,

Dancing on your grave.

No more than you are,

She retorts,

Finally taking him in.

A caricature of a being stands before her,

So absurd that a mouth opens in bewilderment.

His face is a landscape of wrinkles,

Rivers and valleys of age cascading from the high peak of a bulbous nose.

Perhaps beauty once lived there,

But now only runious charm remains,

And his splendor squandered on his hideous outfit.

A silk dressing gown clings desperately to his skeletal frame,

Embroidered birds unravelling in slow-motion flight.

A battered top hat perches at a slant upon his head,

Adorned with absurd baubles,

And the live chicken nestled in his matted hair.

You are a blooming fool,

She murmurs,

Naming him as if casting a spell.

At your service,

Or disservice,

Depending on your inclination,

He bows extravagantly,

Knees bending in opposite directions,

Arms flung wide,

And you,

My dear,

Seem poised for catastrophe.

Please,

Just go away,

She says,

A voice laced with a sadness she cannot quite conceal.

But he ignores her,

Spinning,

Bowing,

Genuflecting as his legs wobble in a perpetual dance powered by unseen fuel.

Between his teeth he clutches a massive flower,

Singing into it in garbled tones,

Calling the wicked and the virtuous alike to revel in some absurd cosmic carnival.

But she does not laugh,

She does not marvel.

She stares only at the cliff beyond the tangled sprawl,

Its jagged edge calling like the last page of a book she has no choice but to finish.

The fool was never supposed to exist,

Not in the way he did,

A patchwork of the absurd,

An alchemical mistake,

Or perhaps an unhinged miracle.

In the days before he danced through fields and conjured verdant chaos,

He had another name,

Long since discarded like last season's harvest.

He was once a man of remarkable intelligence,

A botanist and alchemist whose work straddled the edge of wonder and madness.

Revered and feared in equal measure,

He sought not merely to understand plants but to merge with them,

To create life that pulsed with the harmony of flora and flesh.

His obsession began with his mother's garden,

A riot of flowers and herbs that defied the natural order.

She whispered to roses as though they were her children,

Sang lullabies to lavender and claimed pumpkins told her secrets.

Life,

She told him,

Exists everywhere,

Not just in what breathes and bleeds.

The soil remembers,

The seeds dream.

When she died,

He inherited not only her garden,

But her belief that the line between humans and plants was thinner than anyone dared imagine.

He studied the ancient texts she left behind,

Grimoires that spoke of botanical souls,

Of roots reaching not only into the earth,

But into the human spirit.

This idea consumed him entirely.

It did not arrive all at once,

But seeped in like rain through a cracked roof,

Slow,

Persistent,

Impossible to ignore.

He dreamt of roots knitting themselves into rib cages,

Of lungs blooming with leaves,

Of flowers learning the warmth of blood.

In sleep,

His fingers twitched as though still digging,

Still grafting,

Still begging the soil for forgiveness.

Thought became ritual,

Ritual became obsession.

He fed the earth pieces of himself,

Hair,

Teeth,

Old regrets whispered into furrows.

The garden responded not with obedience,

But with laughter.

Things grew that should not.

Things remembered him.

And someway in that riot of chlorophyll and madness,

Something went wrong,

Or perhaps something went right in a way the universe could not sanction.

The man,

He had been loosened and then unraveled.

His name fell away first,

And then his fear.

And what remained learned to dance.

Time folded in on itself.

Seasons tripped over one another.

The past curdled into compost,

And from it sprang the blooming fool,

Half miracle,

Half punchline,

Dragging life behind him like a parade that had forgotten its root.

Wherever he wandered,

The world overcorrected,

Bursting into surplus as if trying to apologize.

He did not remember the moment of his becoming,

Only the aftertaste of too much color,

Too much joy,

Too much growth pressing against the seams of reality.

Elsewhere,

Now,

The bird-headed woman stands at the edge of herself,

The cliff breathing cold truths into her feathers.

The fool's voice flickers at her side,

Absurd and bright,

But her thoughts are heavier than gravity.

They pull her downward,

Inward,

Toward the oldest question she has never been allowed to ask.

She watches the abyss churn,

And something clicks,

Not in terror,

But in recognition.

Do you ever wonder,

She says,

Softly at first,

As if the thought itself might fracture the air,

Where the falling is only flying in reverse?

The question lingers,

Meant mostly for herself,

And she steps forward.

I was not made for this world.

Neither was dust,

He replies,

Quiet and certain,

And it's managed to get everywhere.

She turns,

Then,

Watching the sun bleed out at the edge of the world,

Swallowed whole by twilight's swamp.

A gust of wind rises,

Biting,

Cold,

And with it she takes her leave,

Each step heavy,

Sodden with unanswered prayers.

He follows,

Trailing her like a shadow,

Gleefully splashing through the tears she leaves behind.

His voice,

Nonsensical joy,

A melody winding around her heart,

Draws her back to spite herself.

And there,

In a path,

Something unfathomable has bloomed.

Vegetables.

Yes,

Vegetables.

They sprout where his absurd feet tread.

Butternut squash vines twist through potato mounds,

Tangling into convoluted nuts.

As he twirls faster,

Chanting some mad prayer to the earth,

The crops multiply,

Expanding,

Inflating,

Bursting with surreal abundance.

Cauliflowers.

Carrots.

Courgettes.

They crowd together in a frenzy,

The exaggerated dream of a demented farmer.

A vegetable apocalypse spilling across the field.

Yet,

Amid the madness,

There is a spark in his eyes,

A glint spun of sunlight and possibility.

And for a heartbeat,

Something inside her thaws.

But it is not enough.

She feels trapped,

Bound by her monstrous form.

Her neck strains beneath the weight of her avian skull.

Her human uterus recoils around the foreign presence of a bird's egg nestled within.

Her feet shift between toes and talons,

Her grip on the world slipping,

As if she were drawn by an indecisive hand that could not quite fathom her.

If I only had wings,

She murmurs,

Clutching the thought like a child grips a scrap of blanket.

Would they appear if I leapt?

Would my creator finally grant me freedom?

For a moment she believes it,

Until fear drives her back.

And beyond the chaos,

She sees it.

The edge.

A cliff that is jagged and brutal,

The bones of the world piercing its thin skin.

There is only one way to know,

She whispers,

Heart hammering.

If I am bird,

I will fly.

And if I am woman,

I will die.

She charges toward the edge,

Wind roaring in her ears.

Each step is a battle,

Legs tangled in unruly vines,

Breath a furnace,

Pulse a war drum.

The garden grows without commandment,

Without serpent,

Without exile.

No god bars the gate.

The abyss yawns a mouth of darkness,

An invitation to death or divinity.

The ground crumbles beneath her,

Pebbles tumbling into nothing.

And yet,

In that chasm she glimpses something new,

An end to uncertainty,

An answer.

The cliff is neither friend nor enemy.

The wind stills,

Not seizing but listening.

It slides over feathers with a gentleness that feels almost intentional,

Lifting nothing,

Demanding nothing.

The abyss below offers no voice,

No promise.

It does not threaten,

It does not comfort.

It simply waits,

Vast and unblinking.

Her breath comes shallow and then slows.

The ache inside her loosens,

Not healed,

Not resolved,

But finally set down.

She is tired of carrying the shape of questions.

Tired of bracing herself against a world that never asked her to exist.

For the first time she does not search the dark for meaning.

She lets it be dark.

Memory drifts through her,

Not as pain but as residue.

A pair of hands trembling as they shaped her.

A breath given with regret tangled in hope.

She understands now.

She was never meant to be finished,

Only begun.

Behind her the riot of life softens.

Even the fool's laughter thins stretched into something fragile,

As though the earth itself senses a threshold.

Her body settles into itself.

The strain eases.

The egg of purpose within her grows quiet.

The imagined weight of wings fades,

Replaced by something simpler.

Acceptance,

Bare and unadorned.

She closes her eyes.

There is no vision,

No revelation,

Only stillness.

A moment so complete it feels outside of time,

As if the world has paused.

And in that indifference,

In that perfect listening silence,

She steps forward towards the edge.

But a hand grips her shoulder,

Not to restrain her,

Not to pull her back.

It is warm,

Steady,

Undeniably real.

She turns slowly,

As if afraid that haste might shatter whatever fragile law has just bent in her favour.

The blooming fool stands beside her,

No longer dancing.

The garden hushes.

Leaves still mid-tremble.

Vines pause in their reaching.

Even the wind seems to hold its breath,

Caught between moments.

Behind him something stirs.

At first she thinks it is light,

Moonlight thickening,

Folding in on itself.

And then laughter stretched thin and softened,

Like a memory of joy recalled at the edge of sleep.

From his back unfolds a pair of wings,

Not summoned,

Not conjured,

But remembered.

Feathers spill outward,

Vast and impossible,

Spun from foolish hope and unspent miracles.

They gleam with the pale gold of things that were never meant to last,

But somehow did.

Each plume carries the residue of abandoned dreams,

Half-finished songs,

And all the beautiful nonsense the world once laughed away.

She cannot look away.

The fool's grip tightens just enough to anchor her.

You,

Her voice breaks.

You have my wings,

He smiles.

Not wide,

Not wild,

But with a gentleness that startles her more than any spectacle.

For once there is no joke waiting behind his eyes.

No,

He says softly.

I have our wings.