'I think I'm going crazy.'�

The way she said it was blunt and unapologetic, like she was commenting on the color of the sky and not on her mental state. Her legs kick up and I have to squint against the setting sun to see her shadow, hair waving behind her like the tail of a kite. She is an ink splotch against a warm watercolor. Beams of light sneak between her arms and legs onto the hand I hold, enraptured, to my forehead. Then she falls back to earth again with her fists clenched on the rusty metal chains. I wait until she digs her heels into the sand and comes to a stop to say, 'What do you mean by crazy?'�

'Do you ever feel like you're trapped in somebody else's body?'� She's not looking at me as she says it, she's staring at the auburn trees who are spilling their leaves lazily across the sidewalk. I find myself staring at them, too. My grip tightens around the metal chains, then relaxes. 'I guess.'�

'I think I'm really a pilot. A secret service pilot, for the president's personal jet. It's not a great job, if I get into an accident and somehow kill the president the whole country would hate me. But I get paid a lot.'� She turns to me, her smile tilted sideways. 'And you?'�

I think for a moment. 'I direct commercials for a very popular soda company. Every time I make a commercial for them, their sales suddenly increase. They hire me for every job. What they don't know is that I use subliminal messages in the footage, pushing people to buy their brand of soda. There are people who are supposed to check for these kinds of things, but they haven't caught me yet.'� She laughs. We watch the trees again, the dying trees, and every now and then a squirrel will crawl up an ancient trunk or a bird will flutter out from the branches and fly away. She points at a crow and follows it with her fingertip as it ascends into the slowly reddening sky.

'Maybe I'm really just a crow.'�
'There's nothing wrong with crows.'�
'Crows are scavengers.'�
'Crows are beautiful.'� I say this with so much conviction it surprises myself as much as it surprises her.

And then I am embarrassed, so I push off the ground. I swing back and forth until I'm high enough. When I make the jump, the world freezes around me. My legs are bent beneath me and my arms are wings and my heart is in my stomach. By now the sky is an inky blue and the first star winks down at me like a jewel. I am breathing hard and the cool air stings my lungs, bringing me back to life. I fly away from her, far away from where she sits on the playground swing. She waves and calls goodbye. She says you are the only bird who understands me.

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