In a concrete jungle in a foreign country where the dogs were all stray and the food was all cheap, a woman with black stringy hair and a common nose had a baby that she named Isaac. It was an antique name but she liked it. Isaac, then, started life from a slightly different perspective than his peers, and he grew up much like they did, only slightly different.

            You can imagine, if you might, an eagle resting high on a cliff. The cliff overlooks a valley teeming with life. This metaphorical wilderness exists in some time or place when no humans hunt and develop, so the valley is a bustling world of activity. The eagle watches it from a cliff, diving in and interacting where necessary. Other eagles, of course, rest on other cliffs overlooking that valley (as well as other valleys). The only difference between the first eagle and the others is that its mother has decided long before to become a vegetarian. Now you can understand the difference between Isaac and his peers, Isaac and other people, Isaac and the valley.

            Eight years after the woman with stringy hair gave birth, Isaac noticed another way in which he was different. Inexplicably, and with varying degrees of intensity, the hair on the left side of his head grew faster than that of the right. It was enough to make Isaac, without realizing it, tilt his head slightly to the left at all times. Whether this improved his upbringing by giving him a unique perspective of the world or whether it hindered his development by marking him as strange among his friends is hard to say. Also that year, Isaac started taking guitar lessons from Mr. Eagan down the block for 6 eggs and the equivalent of five dollars per hour.

            Jump forward: At an age of 13 years, 2 months, 7 days and 14 hours Isaac was climbing a tree. He reflected on the idiocy of this act, as the tree was giant and slippery. He looked at his peers on the ground, forty feet below him, whose pressure had resulted in his ascent. He reached above him at a convenient branch and pulled himself up only to come face to face with a large, brown and white bird of prey. It screeched at him and clawed at his face, at which point Isaac woke up in the hospital with a broken left leg, a broken right hand, and a bruise on his head. It’s worth mentioning that Isaac’s hair, again inexplicably, grew evenly from that day forth.

            As a result of the broken hand Isaac was unable to play guitar (at which he had become quite skilled), and as a result of the broken leg Isaac was unable to move very quickly. It was this confluence of injuries that forced his development onto a slightly different track. He could be found, during the summer months following his injury, sitting on his roof reading a book – constantly. Young Isaac with the stringy black hair and the hooked nose would clamber out the window of his room with the help of his crutches. He’d prop himself up against the wall of the house and let both legs dangle down the roof, towards the edge. In old ripped jeans and a Salvation Army t-shirt he was divinely comfortable. He didn’t need to run, to play guitar, to dance, to play. He learned a lot in those months. Not only did he learn about the subjects he read (of which he focused on military history, biological science, classical literature, and surrealist short stories), but he learned how to learn, how to understand and use information.

            The next year the woman with the black stringy hair and the normal nose died, and Isaac was no longer a boy.

            Four years and a few days after the Great Injury found a more mature Isaac on the roof of his girlfriend’s house. She was named Romina, and she was quite simply the most beautiful creature Isaac had ever, in his life, set his eyes upon. Isaac had brought her guitar up to the roof, and he started to play an old blues standard called Eagle’s Nest. He’d learned the song from his father and hadn’t thought about it in years. He was, for some reason, simply struck with the urge to play that song. It was slow, with a pounding fingerpicked bass line, and although Isaac didn’t remember the whole song he played it quite wonderfully there on the roof. When he was finished, they sat silent on the roof for a little while, and then Romina turned to Isaac, and said to him in a tender voice:

            “I think I love you more now because of that song.”

            In the years following Isaac’s matriculation at Chicago University in the United States and his apprenticeship as a wild bird preservation expert in a privately funded nature reserve, Isaac would often think about those words on the roof and about certain other important moments in his life. He thought about Mr. Eagan, he thought about stringy black hair and hooked noses, but mostly he thought about those words. His attraction to heights never ceased, and he sometimes wondered whether, if one day he managed to lift into the air like the wild birds at the reserve, he might spy Romina on the ground below. He would swoop down into the valley, take her in his claws, and ascend to his cliff on a column of hot air.