Unattended baggage 1:stained couch with box &

<this was a self dare. Don't bother reading if you can't be bothered. Just trying to get better>

Dora's life had been fine really. For years she'd returned home from work and switched on the TV. Once a year she went to the coast and at Christmas she went to her sister's. When her knees packed in she was happy to sit on the couch and watch the world on the box. Her niece would visit and fuss but Dora was fine really. She didn't need to go to a home with a different couch and different things. She was fine. Really. Where she was. There was only one thing that still stirred untended in Dora's soul. One thing she dreamt at night. One thing that sherry and Coronation Street could not appease. To fly.

In many ways seventy is the best age to begin an adventure. Free of fears, funds or observers she lured nine hundred and eighty four birds to her superglued balcony where she collared them with fishing line. Her failing senses were a distinct advantage when it came to the stench and deafening dawn chorus. She didn't mind the seagulls tearing apart her bin (saved her taking it outside) or the magpies raking through her jewellery and tearing sequins from her old dresses (what we she use them for now?). Sometimes she would mistake the shy robins and blue tits nesting on the settee as part of the pattern. She even liked the pigeons. They reminded her of the suited commuters she used to work with. Endlessly puffed up and busy doing nothing. Hundreds of them wandering the dropping stained floors.

In just a few months she'd got the birds, found a company that would deliver boxes of bird seed to her door, lost weight (bird seed can do that) and added wheels to the couch. Dora had never had a plan before. Drawing close to completion, her heart beat faster than it had done in decades. Maybe ever. It felt exhausting but she couldn't stop it or the giddy lightness behind her eyes. Untangling and securing the lines to the couch she felt like she could float off already.

Opening the balcony doors she checked for favourable wind direction, then tied her headscarf tight, adjusted her goggles and secured the telly with tape to the armrest. Wherever she was going it was too.

With one hand on the reins she flung the first handful of seeds through the balcony doors where it arced like a dark rainbow and dropped. There was a rattle on the pavement below. The underfed birds stirred, began to coo, claw and hop. One black eye swivelled then another, before a ripple of screeches and flaps spread across the room. Gripping tight, Dora raised her fist behind her head and threw another. Like lightning the leaders were out snapping their beaks, tugging at the caster wheels before the lines pulled them back. This reflex shook the rest of the flock and they were off as one beast, feathers flying and wings beating. The lines hit notes as they tightened dragging the squeaking couch forward. Building speed, the legs shook and lifted. First two, then all four legs cleared the balcony with Dora pinned to the upholstery as it bucked like a mule.

Gidddeeeee-up! Her slippers slipped and her head scarf fell to her throat like an engine driver. The birds jerked at her hand and the wind pulled at her jowls but she held fast. Rising higher, the smaller birds began to lag behind but Dora didn't care. Once above a certain height she began to glide. The flats were toys to her now, the park broccoli, the town a map. She was level with the horizon. Helios in a pink polyester housecoat.

Reaching into the seed box she was sad when her fingers scraped along its dry bottom. It was time to find a landing spot. Undirected by the single instinct of food the birds started to diverge but the seagulls spotted some bins and dragged the others along to land with a jolt that broke the couch legs. Dora patted herself down and checked the TV. Only when she went to shift a robin from her knee did she realise it had broken free and was pecking at her. The dark cloud of the flock watched from the bins. Their heads tilted and twitched, black eyes rolling to view their gaoler before they descended like a swarm.

You might see nests of white hair and pink polyester around town. I only found the couch, the stain, the box and the TV