It's the right time of evening for the spot of sunlight that pierces my dark room every day. Enough light to look down at my body and see that the transformation is nearly complete. I have not yet chosen a name for my new self but I feel it will come to me tonight, when I dream for the last time.

Tomorrow when they open the door to my cell, I will escape, rise up into the hallway, through to the tower and out the massive windows, as I have imagined many times.

My metamorphosis has taken nearly a year, a slow painful process, engulfing most of my time spent here against my will, a prisoner, unjustly accused...Kidnapping they called it. Salvation is what I call it. Rescuing that poor girl from that undeserving mother. Dragging her through the streets day after day as I passed them, bullying her. The poor child, looking so much like my own lost Sarah. Until finally, I saw it in her eyes: Save me! Take me! If anyone deserved that child it was me, not her. She had no right.

Why did she scream so? Did she not know I loved her?
But now, the beatings will cease.
The water dunkings will be over.
The straightjacket will fall away.
There is now enough light to see my cool satin wingtips. My fine down-covered chest, under a feathered head.
My arms, my legs almost gone.
Open the door, and I will soar...