the sun mourns in vain for the white-throated rail: a comic about disability and the unwanted able-bodied grief for past selves.
[IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
Page 1: The sun holds a white-throated rail, a bird with a red head, a gray body, and a white throat, in its hands. The sun speaks in a tone represented as sorrowful pity through a drippy speech bubble.
Sun: Looking at you makes me sad!
Rail: What?
Page 2:
Sun: Looking at you makes me sad!
The sun stands with a hand clutching its face.
Sun: How miserable it must be to be flightless! Don’t you yearn for the skies? Don’t you wake up grieving you’re still on land?
Page 3: The white-throated rail looks down in frustration in the hand of the sun.
Sun: (speaking off screen) I’d simply perish if I were you!
The rail speaks, looking down. Pink flowers bloom towards the bottom of the page, petals and pollen blowing in the wind.
Rail: Why do you put your words in my beak and your grief in my feathers? Am I not beautiful?
Page 4: The bone of a white-throated rail is positioned against a colorful galaxy dotted with flecks of stars.
Rail: Am I not adaptability in action? Am I not evolution in motion? Do you mourn the days you weren’t a star? Do you mourn when the sky was cold, how unbearably hot you must burn to keep embracing it every day?
Page 5: The sun looks at the viewer.
Sun: Why would I? That was then, this is now. I am content to be in this state.
Page 6: The rail looks up at the sun off-screen.
Rail: Well…So am I.