Amanda dreams that she is beautiful, with a body without scars and wrinkles, that she is young and that she is free from her illness and her earthly ties. Although we could say that every living being, every creature has its intrinsic beauty and thus that would be an unfair comment. Moreover, age is a relative matter, because nowadays seventy years are not the same as when she was young.
Many think that Amanda is special. Because she longs for living in peace and smiling and being kind to others and to herself. She feels that there are cycles in life that must be respected. That biology governs individual doings. That it is proper to follow the internal impulses and not fight against them.
Amanda gets up from her bed in her flimsy nightgown and walks barefoot with a succession of small steps on tiptoe, as if she were a child. She faces the mirror in the dim light and smiles. Her green eyes sparkle like emerald embers and her completely bald head gleams in a surreal way.
She goes to the thin vertical window and opens it wide. A bitter cold invades the room. She stares at the moon in amazement, a huge bright beacon in the sky. She sees it in a bluish tint, almost like a provocation. Lately, she tends to see everything she likes in blue. It is one more sign that confirms her fate.
Almost in a trance, she undresses, dropping the robe to her tiny feet. Standing like this, in front of her blue moon, she seems even smaller and more fragile. A skinny old naked woman looking at the moon through a narrow window. A minimalist picture in the cosmic immensity.
Now she inhales slowly and exhales, in a relaxing mindful breathing exercise. Her thin muscles tense. Her skin bristles from the cold. However, Amanda loves the cold. If it had a color, it would be a cool cerulean.
It is already past midnight, but Amanda gave up the idea of sleeping. Not tonight. Her destiny is of eternity and she is not going to miss it.
She holds a small mother of pearl box between her slender fingers. She opens it and millions of blue particles glow. She leans in gently and inhales the powder through her nostrils, until the little box is empty. Amanda smiles with upmost delight.
The dust she has inhaled jolts her brain like a tsunami. Her blood has turned purple red. Her neurons glow in ultraviolet. Her pupils become much more vertical than ever, perhaps reptilian. Every inch of her skin is on alert. Her ancestors of a thousand planets incarnate and invade her, in a succubus’s ecstasy, possessing her, merging with her delicately anorexic anatomy. Her light carbon fiber skeleton is ready for the ride.
Amanda begins to sing an unearthly tune, a cosmic mantra shaped by whistles on the edge of the human hearing. His vocal cords vibrate at an incredible frequency, like a deranged tuning fork. Amanda stretches her arms out into infinity, her muscles trembling in rhythm with her singing.
Soon, she reaches the climax of her frenzied mantra. While maintaining its pitched vocal vibrato, her metamorphosis begins to unveil. One by one, the quills make their way through the skin on her back, piercing it like needles, exposing the virgin and snow-white feathers. As her wings grow, they turn extreme blue. Amanda experiences both the pain of labor and the joy of her transformation. She knows that her time has come.
After one last breath, the magnificent wings unfold in their entire splendor. Taking a little leap like a child, she crouches on the windowsill, her cat-clawed feet swaying precariously.
Amanda gazes at the stars and takes off on her blue flight.