Learning To Fly

Learning to Fly



         The kitchen was still glowing with a yellow light as I crawled out of bed. I stumbled on drowsy feet to the table, taking a seat and bringing my limp arms forward to rub my eyes, begging them to see clearly. He was still awake, his glasses glinting under the dark hair that was hanging down in front of his face. He stared into a notebook with a pen in his hand limply. Not writing, just thinking. I don’t believe he was even aware I had entered the room.

         I sat silently studying his distraught face. After a long hush lingered I stood. I wanted to reach out and touch his shoulder. To kiss his cheek and announce that I was leaving. I held back not wanting anything solid to tell me I was still dreaming, that he wasn’t really here. I stood and walked to the door, pausing to look at my shoes then waving off the idea of bending to put them on. I turned the handle and slipped out the door unnoticed.

         The air was chilled as my bare feet shifted on the hard ground. I took a deep breath and let the wind enter my lungs and waken my spirit. I was instantly uplifted. I was alive. The light from a single car on the road reflected on a tree as it passed, surging me forward. Walking slowly at first, across the road, and gaining speed as I reached the edge of the woods. 

         I broke through! As soon as all civilization disappeared I ran as fast as I could. My breath came in short bursts that sent clouds of haze toward the starlit sky. I closed my eyes and held out my arms letting the wind whip around them. I laughed manically feeling the closeness of the trees I ran past blindly. I was elated. “So, this is what freedom is? This is what it is like to fly.”

         I slowed when my feet hit a softer ground and opened my eyes to find I was in a field. I spun in a circle until everything in the world blurred. I dropped backwards into the grass and stared into the sky. The sky is the same everywhere, and knowing that, I will never be lost. For a moment I knew innocence, I was a child.