I always thought if I could draw the tunnel out of there, I’d be able to go through. It was a thing people said in my town. Not that my town was that bad, but everyone did want to get out. Each year, maybe as a symbolic offering to their longing, they let the birds out instead. The whole sky was filled with squealing and feathers and what my brother called “a terrified love.” Sometimes this terrified love swooped inches from your face, and you wondered if it would peck your eyes out. Who kept these birds? Why did they? I wish I asked these questions, but I was just a kid when the first annual release took place. This was how the world worked. There were no birds. Then there were thousands. Millions.

I never thought to ask questions until high school, and by then people thought vague answers were answers. “Well, they have to get some air some time, don’t they?”

Or, “Traditions bring people together.”

Now high school was over and so was college and I felt like I couldn’t ask at all.

Some people would shoot the birds. Real nice. You literally could not miss, Assholes. It’s not like they were hungry and it’s not like they were chickens. They were robins and blue jays. Untasty feats of wing muscle.

Most people enjoyed the bird release. Vendors slung handmade birdhouses and eggcups and there was live music. I’m sure the birds didn’t care for mediocre Queen cover bands, and the whole escapade always made my head feel swollen too. Some years, like this one, I was fully nauseous from the moment I woke up. I should have stayed in bed, but all my friends were out sipping ciders and getting up to no good.

We lived near one of those rope bridges in the tree canopy that kids used to practice trust on. It had long been closed. There was no money in trust. So, we’d climb up the ladder that led to the bridge to see things from the arial view. To the birds, it must have been the annual people release. Because here we all came, escaping the traps of our houses and phones and funneling into the blocked off streets like a slow-moving goo of stored up awe, a crusted toothpaste of care.

There were parties going on below and eventually some better music hooked us by the ears and we couldn’t help but leave our position up in the clouds of birds to go down with the people and steal drinks and kiss our friends.

Unfortunately, the bridge had a hole in it. A missing plank that struck fear in our hearts, though we’d learned to get around it.

The rest of the bridge was rickety too, so it wasn’t as if you were safe once you cleared the missing piece. I used all my will power to get over the hole, which always felt like a gap-toothed smile poised to make a meal of me, and smirk. I was worried about my little brother trailing behind me, but he leaned on his confidence and sailed over just fine.

Back down at the party, I received a critique from a girl I once tutored. We’d been in the same class, and she was terrible at math. She said I shouldn’t go around kissing people unless it was a European cheek kiss.

“Both cheeks.”

But she had kissed me!

“Aren’t you going to say anything nice?” I asked.

“I’m saving my positive feedback to make you feel better after.”

“After what?” I asked. But she walked away.

I bumbled around the party feeling down about myself, swiping celery sticks coated in thick spreads. Finally, I climbed back up to the bridge to draw the madness.

Guess who was up there? Yep, the girl I tutored who kissed me and then made me feel like a creep about it. Guess what she was doing up there?

Yup. Making out again.

Unfortunately, it was with my younger brother. Who’s the creep now? I guess she liked boys. Which, live your life. But that’s not what I was thinking then. I was thinking, fall into a hole.

They didn’t even notice me burning their neck napes with my flaccid curses. I turned around to go back and soothe the gross out in my gut, but I wasn’t looking down and my foot landed right in the laughing bridge hole. Down I went.

One leg fell clear through. The rest of me was left shaking on the plank of old, rotten wood beside it. Stuck.

The pair of creeps finally peeled their mouths apart crack up. I could not see the humor in it.

“How am I going to get out?!”

“Draw a tunnel,” they said, in full seriousness. That’s when I knew all of it was a lie. The birds being released, the terrified love, and that any of us were every going to get out of it.