Free Girls Don't Fly by Kristen Chandler

more soft shoeing. I’m me again, in a gross suit. I stand stiffly holding the sign. Nobody honks. I should quit.
    But I need the job.... I need the money.... Why should I let Erik keep me from making money? From writing a proposal for the contest? I start waving the sign a little. So what if I’m a loser. I’m not going to get fired today. Galápagos, I chant to myself. Galápagos .
    As I’m waving the sign I remember how I used to love dancing when I was little. I did it to entertain my brothers but also because I loved doing it. Just because I’ve turned into this pathetic flightless cormorant doesn’t mean I have to stay one. I can evolve. Adapt. Change. Today I can be a great flightless chicken instead. Not a huge improvement. But chickens travel.
    Across the street I see the flickering of light. The traffic light glazes the asphalt in red, yellow, and green. A silhouette in a sweatshirt stands at the crosswalk, looks over at me, and leans up against the light. I turn my back and keep dancing.
    I think of a video I saw on YouTube once with Mick Jagger and Tina Turner. I’m Tina, hoochie coochie-ing on those amazing legs. Then I’m Mick for a while, flapping my wings. Cars pass and honk. In my head I hear “Brown Sugar” playing. Not the dance of a space-sucker. Not the dance of Erik’s invisible girlfriend. Not the dance of a bird resigned to her fate. I don’t have to take millions of years to evolve. I can do it in the blink of a headlight.
    Right in the middle of my crazed chicken routine, two cars race past, running the red at the intersection. They are honking at each other, windows down in spite of the cold. Luckily no one is coming so they don’t kill anyone. Kids race all the time around here. There isn’t all that much to do on a February night after the basketball game is over and the movies have all started. I keep dancing and flipping my sign.
    Just as they pass me I hear brakes. One of the cars stops and a guy gets out. Then he runs. At me. Into me. I fly backward. My head hits the ground, but it bounces instead of splitting open because of the costume.
    I go numb. Everything spins. Except the weight on top of me.
    I can’t see him very well—just a patch of blond hair tied in a red bandanna. A jean jacket. He jumps up and laughs. It’s a forced laugh. He doesn’t think this is funny either. He’s just a wannabe banger trying to be cool for his loser friends. Then he’s gone. And I’m flat on my back seeing stars through my peepholes. Millions of lightless stars.
    Stella shows up in my peepholes a few seconds later. There are other people too.
    They take off my head.
    “Myra!”
    In the midst of the mob of chicken workers staring at me, there is a face that shouldn’t be there. I see Jonathon Hempilmeyer’s nose ring. He’s wearing a white sweatshirt. He was the kid on the street corner watching me. “Myra,” he says, coming close. He’s holding his camera, filming me on the ground.
    “Jonathon?”
    Jonathon shuts off his camera and stares at me with that wide-eyed stoner look he gets. “I’m sorry. It all happened so fast. I didn’t know it was you.”
    Everything is still spinning. But the last few minutes are all coming back to me and I’m not dead. I look at his camera. “Don’t you dare post that.”
    Jonathon sputters. “Yeah. No. I won’t.”
    Stella ignores Jonathon and helps me stand up. She says, “You aren’t hurt. You’re fine. Just walk it off. Do you want some ice cream?”
    I go back into the restaurant and sit in a booth. Jonathon doesn’t come in, and I’m glad because I’m almost coherent enough to tell him what a jerk he is for standing there and filming me getting knocked down. Even if he didn’t know it was me. I put my chicken head on the table. I’m done evolving for the day. I drink ice water from a paper cup. One of the workers asks Stella if he should call the police.
    “Of course not. She’s not bleeding, is she?” She looks at me