Flight

This is a story I started writing a while back, and haven’t worked on in over a year. I spend so much time trying to write and edit my stories, and sometimes they take on this monstrous life of their own and haunt my sleep. I almost never share my work, but this one seemed to be “done” enough. I sat down today, opened it up again and decided to finish editing it. It helps to have a year of space from it I think. Anyway, It’s Called “Flight”, and I hope you enjoy (if you take the time to read it… You definitely don’t need to. It’s not for everyone, I suppose).

Flight

When she was born, they nearly lost her. The doctor was quick to grasp the situation — and her slippery little arm — in spite of the initial shock he must have felt at her condition. It was clear he had never seen anything like it before. The look on his face may have been sufficient to convince them of the strangeness of the situation, but seeing their beautiful new child’s condition was enough on its own.

Despite days of poring over medical journals, and countless consultations with doctors of every specialty, they had no answers. There was no explanation for her condition, so all that was left to do was to leave the hospital a week later, a bit shocked and more than a bit terrified. The administrators did what was in their power to keep her there — to study this remarkable child and her mysterious condition — but, despite the indefinable strangeness of it, she was just a beautiful, healthy, blue-eyed baby girl.

They were happy. Over time the fear disappeared, replaced by the joy of parenting, and the constant love in their little team of three. Even the paranoia faded. They were no longer afraid of some intervention from the hospital or the government. Nobody had come looking for her.

They agreed that they had never seen a happier child. She very rarely cried, and she rolled and spun with laughter at anything new and interesting. They were always happy to play, just to hear the sweet notes of her laughter ringing about their small, comfortable family home. Play time, which seemed to be a permanent state in the house, did require some care, since, as it so often happened, they would overdo it and she would go careening about, bouncing off windows and walls, cabinets and doors. There were so often bruises, but there were never tears.

Feeding her was always a challenge, but despite the mess, the soaked clothing, and the fact that all three of them would invariably end up in the bath after eating, meal times were always good fun.

They had adopted a puppy when she was two years old, and, while she loved to watch him from above, he never seemed to be entirely comfortable when she approached — her condition being ineffable in the mind of a dog. While he would rarely allow her to drift too near him, he did love meal times when he was unofficially tasked with cleaning up the wayward scraps from the hardwood floors.

She never learned to walk properly, being upside down far more than upside up, yet they could never forget to have the leash attached to her little waist harness when they left the house. They could never know when they might accidentally let go of her tiny hand or her harness, and she might slip away. They had tried every option, but not even the heavy special shoes they had attempted would help. They did manage to get outside occasionally, when she was still very young. They loved their walks outdoors, in the deep uncrowded woods, where she was free to watch the squirrels and chase the birds. They would make occasional trips to public parks when they thought it would not be too difficult for her to watch other children run and play without being able to join them. But the leash was always required, an ever-present source of their growing feelings of guilt.

And there were the looks from people around them, on those rare occasions that they were less than vigilant. They were a bit careless on that day at the grocery store: a brief conversation about which type of beans to buy, and he let the leash slip through his fingers just a bit, and she was away. And up. She was safe. They always saw to that. But the looks of horror, of disbelief, on the faces around them were a graphic reminder of how difficult, and dangerous, it would always be to be seen in public with such a remarkable child. 

She was a beautiful child, in demeanor and in proportion. As her unnaturally blonde hair and cherubic baby face began to lengthen with age, they could see the beautiful young woman that she would someday become. As she grew, she became thinner and muscled, lithe, from her acrobatic movements around the house. She was strong. And healthy.

And, sadly, she became more serious. The happy carefree toddler was being replaced by a thoughtful child, curious of the world outside of the special environment they had created for her in their modest home. There were more hard times now as she grew older, interspersed with the diminishing amounts of joyous outdoor exploration.

With language came questions, many of which would prove as difficult for them to answer as they were for her to ask. They read to her until the day she could read to them, but the stories and pictures of a world that she could no longer get to know deepened the thoughtful looks on her face and darkened the moods that she sometimes fell into. They had many conversations with her about her condition, but they had no answers to her questions. She was shown a world through books, and through the stories that they told her, but her own experience was far from that everyday world.

As she grew bigger, older, it became impossible keep her in a stroller or hold her. It proved to be nearly impossible to hide her condition from the eyes of the curious outside world. Through it all was the little harness and the leash.

“I don’t want to live like this anymore”, she said, after spending the morning staring quietly at the unattainable world outside the window of the main room. “I am going outside. And I do not want to put on my harness. You need to let me do this.”

Of course they could never allow it to happen. They tried to explain that she would never return, that she would surely die, but she simply stated that she was not in the mood that day for their thoughts, or, as she called it, ‘their control’. They fought about it, and her mood grew worse, her features darkened by a shadow that they had not seen before.

They managed to keep her in the house that day, and the next, but the following day they fought again. She continued to become increasingly distant and sullen, present in the same room, but always in her own space in both body and mind. A void was opening between them and the beautiful young woman that they had raised against such odds, and it broke their hearts.

It was around this time they noticed that her striking blue eyes had faded to grey, and, sadly, would stay that way for many years. There were moments where the happy ghosts of the past arose in her eyes, in brief flashes of brilliant blue, in those very occasional moments of laughter and play when the dark memory of her life was at rest, but they faded back to grey all too quickly.

Those rare moments were now only short moments of relief from what had become twenty-four hour vigils to keep her safe, to keep her from walking out the door and disappearing forever. The locks on the doors had to be checked every time they came or went, and their feelings of selfishness destroyed them when they went outside without her, but they understood that it would be far too easy for her to slip off her harness, drift away, and be lost to them forever.

So often they had whispered conversations about just opening the door and letting her go. They knew that it should be her choice, but they couldn’t bring themselves to it. They both truly believed that she would grow out of her depression, of her insistence that drifting away — even at the possible cost of her own death — was preferable to the life she lived in her confinement. She did not grow out of it, and it seemed the darkness and depression grew to become a part of her. The fights and the vigilance, and the sleepless nights and the tears continued. They all understood the impossibility of the situation. It was as if there could never be a solution that was both acceptable to them and safe for her. It was begrudgingly understood, but never accepted.

As another year passed, and she began to fill out with the undeniable signs of womanhood, they finally began to realize that they could not keep her in this way for much longer. She was no longer a child. She would have needs: to see the world and to experience life and love, and intimate connection, and to find the world outside of just the three of them in their strange but comfortable little house.

They imagined that they could see the radiant beauty sliding off her now, in danger of being lost forever to her dark thoughts and hopelessness. It was this that hurt them most. Her lost radiance was what finally convinced them that she should be free to fly on her own — whatever the cost may be. They privately discussed the possibility of losing her forever, but they both secretly held the conviction that they had already lost the beautiful child that had always been their very existence. They would need to let her go, and they knew what her decision would be if offered.

They told her of their decision that night before she strapped herself into bed. She thought she would not sleep, her mind so full of possibility and of the unknown, but after a few fleeting thoughts of what the morning may hold for her, she slept better than she remembered ever having done.

She woke with a clear sense of purpose and the uncertain anticipation of what the day may hold. It was a beautiful sunlit morning, a warm breeze blowing across fresh-mown summer grass, bringing the smell of new flowers and the reminiscent perfume of summertime swimming pools. It was the perfect day to step into her future, no matter how long it may be. It was the perfect day to die if that came to pass. She would go toward it with a hopeful heart and eyes wide open, secure in the knowledge that she was truly alive for the first time in many years.

It was the day they had decided to honor her decision, no matter how difficult it would be for them. And they knew it would be difficult if she decided to open that door and drift away, but her condition was hers now, as was the outcome. There were also thin threads of hope woven in and around their sadness. It was hope that she may experience her independence, and it offered some minuscule relief from the melancholy that threatened to overwhelm them.

There were tears. Tears of sadness and tears of joy, and of fear and anticipation. They brought her down and they embraced for what seemed like forever, unsure how they could convince her of the love they felt for her, only slightly aware that it wasn’t necessary. She knew that she was loved. She told them that she loved them, was ever grateful for everything they had done for her, and wanted them to trust that she would be happy whatever the outcome. There were more tears.

They strapped the little harness around her waist and attached the leash for the last time. She wanted it that way. She looked around their strange little house for the last time, the furniture, the bedroom, the bed that she had slept in for as long as she could remember, all built into the ceiling above them. Upside down, it was nearly a mirror image of the living space that her parents had occupied since before she was born. It was her home, and, more recently, her prison. With mixed emotions she thought her goodbye to that strange little house, and looked back to her parents that had sacrificed so much through her entire life with this condition. She had so much to express, her gratitude, her fear, but she saw them clearly now. She realized that they already knew. There was nothing left to say. They walked to the door together, this little team of three. As ever, her feet never quite touched the floor.

She watched the door open with anticipation, as if that narrow space could open wide enough to let the entire world through. She fantasized for a moment that she could let the world in and just stay there, safe and comfortable, but it was not to be. It was time for her to fly. With this realization came confidence. She hesitated slightly, gathering herself, then slipped through the door and into the uncertainty of the rest of her life. They followed her in silence, all too aware of the blank canvas of their own future.

As they let out some of the leash she drifted upward until she floated about five feet above them. They all knew that she would ascend as far as the leash allowed, her condition being what it was, but never enough to carry them away with her. She reached down with trembling fingers and released the little harness at her waist, holding the ends together for a long moment. She looked lovingly at her parents, her eyes more brilliant blue than the summer sky, a single tear sliding down a cheek and into her anticipatory smile. Nobody spoke. There was nothing left that could be said.

She let go the ends of her harness and began drifting slowly, inexorably upwards into the cloudless sky. As they stood quietly and watched, they lost sight of her occasionally as their eyes filled with tears and lost focus, then found her again as the focus returned. She grew ever smaller until their eyes could no longer find her. Both their throats had become too tight to speak, but neither had the words if they could. They stood there, in the yard, on that perfect summer day, not knowing how long they would stay there staring into the sky. The dog — old now, and slow — sat quietly looking up with them.

Perhaps one or the other of them thought to go back inside and close the door, but nothing had been said when the wag of a tail and a single bark from the dog brought their attention back to the moment. Something, the slightest contrasting black spot, appeared in the infinite sky and slowly began to coalesce into a familiar shape. They watched as the form of their daughter — their special, amazing daughter — continued her slow, controlled descent, growing ever closer. She settled onto the grass in front of them with the slightest stumble, legs shaking, her feet touching the ground and taking her weight for the first time in her life.

She was beautiful again, radiating happiness, all the darkness in her having dispersed into the clear air during her flight.

“Everything is going to be okay now,” she said, a smile connecting the corners of her mouth to her eyes — eyes now radiant, as green as the verdant summer grass below her feet.