Episode 150: Doris Lessing: "Flight" and Letting Go

He deliberately held out his wrist for the bird to take flight, and caught it again at the moment it spread its wings. He felt the plump shape strive and strain under his fingers; and, in a sudden access of troubled spite, shut the bird into a small box and fastened the bolt.

'Now you stay there,' he muttered; and turned his back on the shelf of birds. He moved warily along the hedge, stalking his granddaughter, who was now looped over the gate, her head loose on her arms, singing. The light happy sound mingled with the crooning of the birds, and his anger mounted.

In Doris Lessing's story, an old man wrestles with the pain of losing his granddaughter to marriage — a quiet, profound reminder that life is about letting go, even when it hurts.