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I watch the birds fly in the sky. They fly free, dancing around in paths too random for the mind to understand and the eyes to track. They are free, what I am not.

I see her by the window, gazing at the sky again. Her posture is that of a doll, positioned on the corner of a shelf and leaning over from slowly losing the struggle with gravity. I watch her gather dust.

"What are you watching?"
"Dreams."
"Dreams are only for those who are asleep. You're awake, you idiot."
"You're so bitter."

I see her fret and curse at every detail that comes to her attention. From my customary spot by the window, I watch both her and the sky.She is a bird with broken wings, flapping helplessly and shrieking at everything that comes near.

Bitter? I guess I am bitter. These legs have become blocks of lead, dead and unmoving. I can no longer even think about following my dreams.

"You cry at night."
There is venom in her glare.
"I do not."
"Even if you do it into your pillow, I can still hear you."
"Shut up. Someone like you who gave up on her life and dreams shouldn't be giving me pity."
"What 'dreams' do you live for then?"
She doesn't answer.

There are fewer birds now. They fly south to gentler places. She moves restlessly in her chair, as if she could fly south as well, to escape the harshness of her reality.

Her eyes are lifeless now. They stare into space, without thought or direction. It makes me want to shake her and bring back life into her, but I'm afraid. I imagine hearing her joints clatter and I visualize seeing her limbs shatter like porcelain.

"How come you never have any visitors?"
"They gave up on me after I became this way. What about you? You're cold to your family."
"They don't understand how I feel. I don't need their pity."
"Isn't that all you do? Mope around and wait for pity?"

She was furious. At first it seemed as if she would peck my eyes out. Soon however, she had calmed down and withdrawn into herself. I turn back to sky gazing, but I become plagued by memories she has triggered. Her personality is too much like his.

She has returned to her favourite pastime of staring into oblivion. Who stitched the melancholy into her? Lifelessness and solitude seem to be her only traits. Yet something is different now. In this silent room, the pained breathing of suppressed emotions can be heard. The doll is alive.

"Hey, what made you like that anyway?"
"He died."
"What?"
"He died and the world lost its colour. Now my dreams feel more real than this."
"Um..."
"He used to take me bird-watching."
"Are you alright?"

I cried into her shoulder for hours. I didn't notice when she came by my side and I didn't notice when anyone else came into our room, if they did. The psychiatrist, the doctors, my family, they didn't understand why I gave up. But she did. This bitter girl with her broken legs and wings seemed to understand.

The façade is breaking. Emotions possess her voice as she talks of him. She is recovering her life and dreams in small, unseen steps.

"When are you leaving?"
"Soon. In a few days or so."
"Bring me something."
"I will."
A smile breaks out on a face long out of practice.

Her sharp retorts are gone, replaced with words with more weight and thought to them. She tells me of her dreams in soccer. I understand now how much she has lost. Within her though, something is growing. The bird will never fly again, but it is learning to walk.

The depression is gone. Her prison that she constructed for herself is no more, and there is nothing holding her back now. Recovery will be tedious, but she is no longer a doll that needs the strength of others to move. She flies free.