My name is Jukebox. I am an osprey. Or I was an osprey. I dove down for a fish (as one does) and seemed to wake up when I hit the water. I woke up and I was a man in a hammock. And I didn’t know what my name was. Did I hit a rock when I went into the water? And what about that fish? It looked like a trout, and there are rarely trout on this river. I love a trout, especially a brook trout. They’re a hell of a thing to carry off the river to the shore, but so delicious. Anyway, I’m in this hammock now. And again, I seem to be a human male, swinging in this hammock, looking at birds (some friends, some enemies) and intermittently napping. I see myself as I was when I shut my eyes. I feel the breeze lifting the hammock and gliding me over the water. I smell the stink of the fish that I didn’t finish eating the other day. It’s right near this hammock. Am I really this person? Do I have feet instead of talons? Am I doomed to never fly again? I seem to think about things like this a lot. I remember only really thinking about the fish, the wind, and the other ospreys until that last dive. Now I have words with which to describe my experience. I know what it means to be an “I”. Or I have theories that seem unprovable. Is this better? Is better a relevant concept? What about that trout? Well, if I’m going to be stuck with this body, I’m going to use it. And it appears that I also have a bicycle that I seem to know how to ride. I’ll go find some other humans and ask them if they are ospreys or people.
This is a what3words story, part of a collection available to be viewed here.
Roman Ryan 