Dedication

To my parents, for hiding me from the Flightless.

And to all human beings who choose to carry substantial burdens to preserve our children’s right to become who they are.

Preface

The Intact and the Flightless is a bedtime story.

It serves as the closing bookend to The Abstractionist’s Papers, a framework for understanding reality. The yellow triangle is the central discovery of it all.

A bird’s wings can be anything that makes that bird who they are.

Welcome to the Blue Space.

The Intact and the Flightless

Once upon a time,

our land was ruled by birds.

All birds were flightless.

That’s because,

whenever a baby bird was born,

other birds would clip the baby’s wings.

“Long wings can only weigh a baby bird down.
With shorter wings, our little ones
will become so much more,”

all were quick to agree.

To be fair, in the beginning,

long wings can be a heavy burden.

So that was the way of the Flightless.

Until one day,

an odd little bird appeared.

What made this bird so strange?

He was born with GIANT wings!

For many years,

he hid from the Flightless

and kept his wings intact.

When the Intact grew up,

he learned to use his wings and flew.

As he soared across the skies,

the Intact saw things

the Flightless would never see.

He felt things

the Flightless would never feel.

And he did things

the Flightless would never do.

The Flightless, of course,

will never know what it’s like to fly.

Ask an Intact what it means to have wings.

“Other odd birds will arrive and I’ll defend their right to become who they are,” the Intact says.

The End.