“Same Walk, Different Shoes” is a Substack community writing project that Ben Wakeman organized as a practical exercise in empathy. The premise is simple. A group of writers anonymously contribute a personal story of an experience that changed their life. Each participating writer is randomly assigned one of these story prompts to turn into a short story. The story you are about to read is one from this collection. You can find all the stories from the participating writers at Catch & Release. Enjoy the walk with us.
As a girl, I would make nests for birds in the garden, spend hours hidden in the forest keeping notes of all the animals I could see. I caught a bird with my hand once, a fledgling. I stuck out my arm as if our timing was known for centuries1. It’s funny, isn’t it, how all these years later, I still think of her. Did I return her to the right nest? Did the scent of me ruin her? Did the oil on my skin break her feathers? I think of her in that tree with the view of Arthur’s Seat, the Scottish winds blowing through it, her second attempt or third, if she fell again, and wonder if a bird learning to fly thinks itself an imposter.
I tell myself this story about her:
She ruffles her tiny body as I walk away, watches my footsteps through the clearing, too much noise, too heavy, she waits until the earth is still. Her family are gone already, instinct has sent them southwards to the Amazon where I once watched a hummingbird hatch, where I dreamed I was invincible, even as I witnessed the vulnerability of broken shell, two eyes, a beak emerging, yet when I fell no hand reached out to catch me. In my Scottish nest I grew afraid. Fear took hold.
In hers she dreams of sunlight, heat, even as the rain sends darkened skies skidding through cold, even as the gales threaten to dislodge her, she sleeps away the failure of her first fight, the fall, my hand, the racket of my leaving. She cleans her beak, her eyes dart skywards. She hears the rustle, feels in whispers winter coming, knows that time is passing even as she listens to the river, sees the south American skies shiver with great flocks swooping; a life that is hers by right if only she believes. One eye on the last day of a dark Scottish summer, I dream her dream of the Amazon as she stands on spindle legs, lifts feathers to the morning light, takes flight.
Such a beautiful thing to read, Eleanor. You became the fledgling bird in writing this. I love the references to the bird's instincts of the seasons and where it must go.
Sparkle and I just listened together. And we’ve both concluded that you’re very brilliant x