Jonathan Livingston Seagull

My name is Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

I look like your average sea bird on the outside:

Scruffy, feathered and filthy,

But my heart’s ambitions cause my mother to worry.

She always tells me to be more like my ten thousand brothers and sisters.

They’re all scavengers, but I glide upon the spontaneous thermals of the agitated ocean.

They thought I was uncomfortably different;

Gaining speeds up to two hundred and seventy miles per hour,

Leaving them in the salty mist of the crashing waves.

I would rather starve than be chained to an island of bountiful fish.

I would rather die alone, while trying to embrace the physics of flight, than be accompanied by the safety of numbers.

My brothers and sisters squawk that my frail body will kill me.

I can’t hear them, for my heart thumping to the tune of the humming wind is all that really matters.

Your average seagull flaps their wings frantically to capture food every couple of hours.

Your average seagull is aware of what is happening at all times, with the comfort of a schedule.

Your average seagull nestles with the flock, resting their weary bodies for the new day to come.

I am not your average seagull.

My name is Jonathan Livingston Seagull,

But everyone calls me Aeroplane.