Flying Paper Airplanes

Flying Paper Airplanes

It was cool in the gallery. The smooth white walls closed around me, closed in the atmospheric lighting so that gold bounced serenely off the ceiling and into the shadows. It gave me the impression that I was trapped inside an egg. There was, surprisingly, no mood music, but many civilized voices chattered in the yellow light. My head began to pound from the din.
         
I spotted a grad student I knew, a year or two ahead of me. I contemplated trying to strike up a conversation with her, but remembered in time that I was not actually fond of her and decided against it. Everyone in the large room was talking to someone else. Except for me. It was lonely here. The grad student was the only person I knew, although I recognized others: professors, journalists, editors.

The space became oppressive. I retreated to the opposite side of the room, away from the grad student lest she decide to speak to me. My eye was attracted by a thin shelf in the middle of the wall, the same colour, holding up a row of paper airplanes. The planes seemed to be made of a heavy, almost cloth-like paper. The material dipped and bulged, making the planes look damp. I couldn’t imagine them actually flying. Yet there was still something almost magnetic about them. I wanted to brush my fingers over their thick wings.

The plaque punched into the wall beside the shelf told me that there had been an artistic experiment involving the planes a few weeks ago. Participants had written a wish on a piece of paper and then folded it into an airplane. After that the planes were flown out of the tenth floor window of some building in town.

The thought of all those wishes scattered around the city caught me in a strange way. I tried to come up with a wish I could have written on one of those planes, and thought of several. I wished I was richer, happier, smarter. I wished I was still on speaking terms with the rest of my family. I wished I was more attractive to women. The longer I thought about it, the more wishes appeared in my mind.

A man carrying a tray laden with drinks was trying to squeeze between me and an older man who was gesticulating wildly. I pressed myself against the wall to let him through, the plaque’s sharp edges digging into my back. He didn’t even pause to say thanks or to offer me some wine. I ground my teeth to keep from calling him back. There was no point to it.

A voice in my head whispered sadly, You wish you still loved yourself…

I wondered how my unconscious could conjure up such a morbid thought. My eyes began to burn and I felt as though some large and heavy monster were sitting on my shoulders. I had to get out of this place.

I strode briskly out of the gallery to my car. The scratched blue paint of my familiar friend was oddly comforting. Even the smell of old chips mixed with dried grass and a touch of gym socks was welcoming. I lounged in the seat for a moment, letting myself relax and shake off all the emotion, before starting the car and pulling out.

The parking guard’s face reminded me of one of my old school mates, a kid who I’d heard had died in his first year of university. I tossed the man a five rand coin and hurriedly drove off, trying not to let my eyes wander to the rear-view mirror. I felt unsettled again.

The one memory began to trigger others. My mother appeared in my mind’s eye. She was smiling at something outside the window, probably my father or older brother. I couldn’t remember the last time I had spoken to any of them. And I couldn’t quite remember why I had ever stopped. There were things that they had done, I remembered. Things I wasn’t sure I could forgive them for. My mother was the most innocent, however. She always resented the way my father treated me. Sometimes I thought that I might be able to forgive her.

When I got home I was exhausted, but I wanted to crank out at least another page of my dissertation before going to bed. I got caught up editing almost as soon as I pulled the document up on my laptop. Half an hour later I found myself satisfied with three corrections and only fifty fresh words.

My mind didn’t turn off with the light. I saw paper airplanes flitting through my hands, darting over my head. The voice repeated wish after wish. You wish you weren’t so pathetic and lazy and unambitious. You wish your parents loved you more. You wish you could find a girlfriend. You wish you could run faster. You wish bills would pay themselves and dissertations would write themselves. You wish your brother had never been born.

You wish someone would listen to all your wishes…

I woke up the next morning with a need. It was Sunday, so I sat in bed for an hour just thinking, and then lazed about my apartment attempting to get ready for the day. By twelve I was washed, dressed, and fed. But I didn’t know what to do with myself.

I ambled around the apartment under the pretext of cleaning until I was bored. I flopped onto the couch and watched some mindless daytime TV. Then I got up to convince myself with a cup of coffee that it was time to work some more on my dissertation. I stared blankly at the computer screen, my coffee burning my left hand.

A sudden impulse rushed into my joints and before I knew what I was doing I had pulled up an old e-mail from my mother and I was carrying the laptop over to the printer. I hooked everything up and pressed print. I scanned over the message while the printer noisily spit out the single page. She had signed it, “Much love, Ma.” The line made me feel both angry and sick. My hands fisted with impatience. When the printer finally let go of the page I yanked it up, reading through the message again and feeling nauseous.

Something about the texture of the paper and the way it lay in my hands seemed to placate me. I was reminded of the airplanes that had haunted me the night before. My gaze shifted to the clean sheets still in the printer. My mother would have to wait. I wasn’t ready to forgive her yet, but maybe I could change that.

I removed a small stack of paper from the printer bed and relocated to my kitchen table. I set the stack down cautiously, making sure the pages were not bent. I stood staring at them for a while, figuring out what exactly I planned to do.

I tallied up the most urgent wishes in my mind (there were seven in total) and began methodically folding the crisp, bleached-white sheets laid neatly beside me. Each time I took a fingernail to a wingtip a new, painful memory rose up from the murky depths of my conscience. I wasn’t straightening out folds anymore; I was straightening out my entire life. The folds had become every mistake I had made, every wrong turn I had ever taken, every injustice God had had the nerve to bestow upon me—and I was fixing them.

It seemed strange that my heart should be racing when all I was doing was making paper airplanes. I felt choked as I rummaged for a special pen. It was my favorite pen; its tip always glided smoothly over the paper, effortlessly realizing my unspoken ideas in fluid black lines. I began to write. My hand shook as I carved the first wish into the first plane. A part of me seemed to go hollow as the pure white of the folded page was adulterated by the biting ink. I breathed deeply and continued to the next. It got a bit easier as I went, and once I came to the final wish I was able to release my shoulders and smile a little. I was almost done. Just a few more words and I wouldn’t have to hide from myself anymore.

I gathered up the airplanes in my arms, feeling as if I was trying to cradle eggshells. They fluttered almost nervously while I sauntered out to the car, hooking my foot around the front door in order to pull it shut and nearly losing my balance. Once I had managed to slide into the front seat without crushing my delicate cargo I dumped the planes with much less ceremony into the passenger seat. I regarded them for a moment, almost suspiciously. I thought they might rise up of their own accord and fly out of the window, leaving me to face my troubles alone. It amused me that I was using such fragile soldiers in the battle against myself.

The drive lasted for twenty minutes, but my thoughts were so far away that the time passed with dream-like speed. And then I was there. Standing guard beside the passenger door, looking out over the hill top, noticing the scent of the grass and the way the golden blades swayed on the crest, always falling to one side or another. The sun was low in the sky to my left, but the sky itself was still a clear, clean expanse of blue. I traced the soon-to-be journey of my planes over the edge of the hill. I imagined the wind, the same breeze that tickled my arms and tossed the hair over my forehead, blowing them so far away. Cold crept into my stomach as I saw their naked, helpless frames dip in the air before me. It must be like letting go of one’s children. I knew I was going to lose a part of myself now. But it was a part I wanted to lose—this was the choice I had made, the only chance I had left.

I inhaled deeply as I turned to the car, opening the door just enough to slide a hand through the gap and carefully pull out a single plane. I used the door as a shield for the others; none of my babies was going to fly away until I let them go myself. I traced my fingertips over the edges of the first plane, resisting the urge to peek at the wish held between its wings. All of them were going to be released eventually. What did it matter which one flew first and which one last?

I gave the plane a final, loving look and raised it above my head. The wind tugged at it impatiently, but I only gripped the paper tighter between my fingers. My arm stiffened and I thought of a hundred reasons to abandon the project and keep the plane, but I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that there was only one way to do this, and it was time. I jerked my arm back, then forward, and somehow convinced my fingers in that split second to let go. My little paper airplane shot into the wind, twirling gracefully over the crest. It carried me away.