Escape
She had been chasing her breathing for what had felt like forever but just couldn’t seem to catch it. The air in the room seemed to have grown too thick to swallow. The taste of the last bit of smoke from the extinguished candles caught the back of her throat. The blackness of the room went on forever as she tried to find the others in her panic, trying to listen for them but there was nothing. Not a sound echoed through the room that held five friends not moments earlier.
She shuffled across the floor towards what she hoped was the door. The decaying wood underneath her hands and knees stuck into her like little needles. Tears fell from her cheeks silently as she felt her hands move over the thick dried paint they had put there earlier in the night. She knew that meant she was out of the circle. The door couldn’t be too much farther. The cabin had not been that big.
Her shaking hand reached up where her mind thought the doorknob was, she was going to make it out. Suddenly the cold breath on the back of her neck told her she was wrong.
Resisting the Down-to-Earth
The world below is green punctured by vast islands of grey. This is England from the perspective of clouds and sparrows, the familiarity of my home made strange by different angles and a miracle playing with my DNA. I’ve been soaring for hours, enjoying topsy-turvy freedom and photo-bombing a young couple’s romantic hot air balloon ride. I’ve never told anyone this, I guess because it sounds a little silly, but I’ve always wanted to fly, ever since I first saw Christopher Reeve catch that helicopter in the first Superman movie. I’m far less dutiful now I’ve been blessed with the power. I called into work pretending to be sick, even as I tried to play with a lone magpie on his own territory. The birds must be getting freaked out if they think we’re even able to trespass all the way up here.
It’s all thanks to the latest pandemic to dance across the globe, its symptoms including a government falling as a journalist suddenly finds she can read the mind of a president, London Fashion Week thrown into chaos as its clothes, along their models, suddenly become invisible. There’s no rhyme or reason to any of this, other than occasional outbreaks of pure irony; the conspiracy theories are rife, fuelled by the discovery that whatever-this-is lasts exactly 24 hours, no more, no less, but once the initial fear and confusion passed, most of us learned to enjoy it; if some strange virus is going to rage across the planet, then by all means let it be one that lets me fly, if only for a day.
I’ve flown before, of course, knees pushed against a snoring hulk in front of me, the promise of a glorious overview of a rolling planet trapped behind relentless plexiglass. This is something else; it would be easy to make a lazy comparison with Google Earth, but that doesn’t work in practice. What cheap metaphors lack is life – I can feel the damp of water droplets as the edge of clouds soak into my clothes, air currents roaring in my ears, and beneath my Doc Martens and several hundred feet of air I can see steam rising from industrial chimneys and the stop-start, stop-start of the M6 at rush hour. Maps and photos don’t move, don’t breathe, lacking the dimension of time and movement that turns knowledge into experience.
Well, a limited experience at least. I can stay up here for a few more hours, but that doesn’t press pause on the world. Earth still turns, exerting its gravity, and somewhere among that sea of concrete and roofs is a hospital and pipes, nurses and time running out.
I put those thoughts aside, push against nothing and rise further. I’ll never be able to do this again, based on the latest reports, so I fly northwards. At first I think this is random, until I see the huge half-sphere of the Jodrell Bank Radio Telescope emerging in the distance. Its appearance shocks me, not because I’m anything even approaching an astrophysicist, but because I remember Dad taking me here when I was a kid, looking around the visitor centre and the exhibits, spending a long drive home talking about space and flight and aliens and the occupants of a UFO who had once allegedly stolen mince pies from a lady who lived just a few miles from our home. It’s a happy memory, growing in intensity as I circle the dome. I think about landing, or at least standing on top of the telescope, but I don’t want to cause any damage and I force myself to remember that my day-gift is flight, not time travel. My Dad isn’t down there with an eight-year-old nerd, he’s lying in an NHS bed, wired up and ventilated.
I should be down there. I should be down there, not reminiscing and taking obligatory selfies outside first-storey offices and penthouses. Guilt wells up once again, guilt that I’m running away, guilt that I’m not making the most of this precious gift. Dad wouldn’t want me to squander this, I’m sure, and that makes me feel a little better, but that hope is betrayed by the thought that I could also be squandering the moments we have left. The slipping-away could happen any moment and I’ve never been known for good timing.
But if this flight is a rebellion against the laws of physics, maybe there’s another brief opportunity to fight back, however pointlessly, to rage against the dying of the light with an act of petty but anomalous vandalism. I dig into my thick woollen coat, excavating the detritus of my pockets and pulling out a sharpie. And there, in the sky above Cheshire, I write my initials on this monument to science, my initials, Dad’s initials, the date of that long-ago visit.
We were here, once, and though we’ll never be here again, I’ll leave some trace that we once passed through. The sharpie lid clicks back into its place and I start back towards home, towards that-which-is-to-come, and as the miracle’s time draws to a close, I can’t think of anything else but the beauty of flight and the tears drawn from my cheeks to become a part of the clouds.
Hovering
After a lifetime of wonder and worry, it is apparent that death is not the end, but neither is it a beginning.
I frequent the old haunts, collecting dust among the cobwebs in the high corners, swaying with them in the breezes while she carries on.
She has changed. Gray has crept into once dyed, and highlighted hair, while the style has grown out. Quick, light meals have whittled away what was already a naturally small frame. She spends more time on the porch, less on the phone, more in the garden, less on the computer, more with my dog Roscoe, and less with her friends. She pauses in hallways as she moves from room to room, enchanted by outdated photos in outdated frames. She lies awake deep into the night, then rises before the dawn. The things she once teased me about she has become. She is contemplative, skeptical, aloof.
She and Roscoe are now fast friends. She even lets him into the bed at night, an abhoration just a short while back. He lays with his chin on her foot through the quiet nights and days, needing to keep her close. He was a good dog for me, and he is a good dog for her.
She is only happy when the girls come, but they do not come often. They do not like the changes. The changes in her. The changes in Roscoe. The changes in the house. The interminable silence.
They tell her the house is too big, that she can’t keep it up alone. They are right, but she will stay. She and it will fall apart together. Memories do not travel well and there are too many to pack, so she will stay, she tells them, and keep those memories company.
”But it is so sad here,” they say, “with Daddy’s things all around.”
But the things do not make her sad. They are her things, too.
Me? I am indifferent. Indifferent about the house. Indifferent about the things.
I am only eyes that hover here... watching her, and waiting.
Shining flight!
Through the clouds,Past the moon,
The stars shine, Oh so bright!
Where angels fly, Heavens above,
Halos shine, Oh so bright!
Cherub eyes, Tantalized,
As they shine, Oh so bright!
In the sky, Fantasized,
My thoughts shine, Oh so bright!
When I die, paralyzed,
Not surprised, all I find,
Is fire and fright!
Pendulum swings with time,
Twenty four hours of flight!
One Man’s Curse
Back to school sucks. Especially this year. Normally you can numb the pain by catching up with friends or by getting back into sports. But not now. It’s only classes this year, nothing fun, everyone separated by sheets of plexiglass like we’re at a bank or something.
And back to school sales? They always make it seem so joyous with posters of smiling, anthropomorphic pencils and apples that for some reason are just so damn happy to see you. Total BS. Everyone wears masks at the store now, but I know exactly what faces they’re all wearing—the same, dull, mildly annoyed expression that says “shut up and let me get my pencil sharpener and notebooks so that I can leave.”
I look anxiously down the road for any sign of the bus, but the street remains painfully empty. I told my aunt I was going to the store to get some school supplies, which I did, but I may have taken a detour through the skate park along the way. I can still make it back in time for the stupid dance classes she’s signed me up for—apparently, she doesn’t think skating is a good enough hobby for someone of my, you know, gender—but there won’t be enough time if I skate back. The bus is my only option at this point.
Finally, I hear the glorious sound of a diesel engine, and the big, blue city bus pops into view from around the corner. As it pulls up to the curb, I shoulder my bag—now full of colored pencils and erasers that I will never use—and am about to head up the steps when I feel someone push past me and cut their way to the pay station.
“Hey, watch it jagweed!” I call out angrily. I recognize the boy. He was in a couple of my classes at school last year, but I don’t really know his name. He’s super quiet most of the time and keeps mostly to himself. I let out an annoyed sigh as he disappears into the mass of people standing in the aisle, and I climb into the bus with angry steps.
“Sorry, ma’am. We’re at capacity. You’ll have to take the next one,” the bus driver says apathetically.
“No! Seriously? Just let me through, I’m small.”
The driver shrugs and covers the receiver on the pay station. “Sorry.”
With poison in my glare, I tug my mask down, stick out my tongue, and bound back down the steps, kicking the side of the bus as I disembark.
Well crap. I’m definitely going to be late now. I look at the rear of the bus just as it’s pulling away, and before my mind even knows what my body is doing, I drop my skateboard under my feet and grab a hold of the back bumper, just like in Back to the Future. I duck down low as the bus pulls me forward, adrenaline surging through my veins.
I laugh, shocked at myself. I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff before, but this has to be at the top of the charts. If my aunt saw me right now, I’d be in so much trouble. Shoot, if a cop saw me right now I’d be in so much trouble. There are a few pedestrians on the street, but no one seems to have seen me yet. My hands turn sweaty as the wheels of my board vibrate dangerously against the uneven pavement, and I consider letting go and forgetting the whole thing before we get going too fast, but a battle rages in my mind between my desire to avoid the wrath of my aunt and my natural sense of self-preservation.
If I could only turn invisible.
Then, just like that. I am.
I almost let go, that’s how surprised I am. In fact, at first I think I have let go when I look down and see nothing connecting me to the bumper. My arms, legs, clothes—shoot, even my board is invisible.
What in the actual hell?
My first instinct is to panic, but I’m too amazed and too excited about the endless possibilities to stay that way for long. Imagine all the places I could go skating that are usually off limits, all the movies I could see for free—whenever theaters open again, that is. This is nuts!
A few stops later, I’m scrolling through a mental list of ways to exploit this new development when I see the boy get off the bus and walk towards a patch of trees a ways off, his steps slow and his head held low. I wonder what he’s doing out here. This part of town is notoriously sketchy, and most of it is just abandoned warehouses and train tracks anyways. What this kid could be up to is beyond me.
I’m so distracted by this weirdo that I don’t even realize the bus is pulling away again, and I suddenly lose my grip. I rush to grab the bumper again, but it’s too late. The bus is already moving too fast. I cus internally and slam my board against the street. This fricken boy. That’s twice now he’s caused me some sort of delay in getting home.
He turns around at the sound of the board clattering along the street, and I pause as he looks directly at me, but then his eyes move on, unaware of my presence, and he continues walking.
Well, so much for making it home in time. As long as I’m stuck here, then, I might as well put my invisibility to good use. A fiendish thought crosses my mind, and I decide it’s about time to deliver some sweet justice to this kid. I’ll just scare him a little, just enough to make him piss his pants. I follow him into the trees, making sure to soften my steps as I walk, and trace his path through the loosely packed woods. We continue on for several minutes, with nothing but the trees and an occasional squirrel to keep us company, and soon the minutes begin piling up to an uncomfortable level. There’s a weakly defined dirt path, but certainly nothing trodden enough to indicate that it’s frequently used. I begin to worry that he’s headed somewhere weird or creepy. I don’t want to know what this guy does deep in the forest.
I’m about to head back and forget the whole thing when the trees clear and we emerge alongside an old, rusted railway bridge that spans the length of a canyon. It has to be hundreds of feet deep, with a small river curving lazily around a series of bends, its water green and brackish. What could he possibly be doing here?
I follow him to the edge of the bridge but I draw the line there. I’m terrified of heights. To my horror, he jumps up onto the rails and continues along the side of the bridge, making his way toward the other side. There are bits and pieces missing from the planks below the rails, and he’s forced to hop over certain sections, something he does with complete fearlessness.
This kid’s psycho, I think to myself.
Then, when he reaches the rough mid-point, I see him take a deep breath and climb up the barrier along the side until he’s practically standing at the very top. He closes his eyes and stretches out his hands, and I feel my heart stop, suddenly realizing what he’s about to do.
“WAIT!” I yell, practically flying up onto the bridge by instinct alone, my panic overriding my fear of heights. The boy lowers his arms and looks around frantically, but clearly he still can’t see me.
“Who’s there? Who are you?” he shouts, still scanning the edge of the forest. I run the final steps to where he’s perched on the ledge and take a second to grab my breath, a little unsure of how to respond. He turns back and looks down at the river again, and I can tell he’s about to proceed, so I force my mind to work harder than it ever has before in its life and spit out a quick response.
“Your angel! Yeah, your angel!” I say breathlessly. Crap, I need to work out more.
“My angel? Now?” He turns his head skyward, an enraged expression carved onto his face, and he begins shouting. “You know how long I’ve prayed for an angel, and you decide to send one now? I’ve been praying for miracles, I’ve been praying just to be seen, and now, after years of silence, right when I’m about to remedy my pain on my own, you send an angel, now? For what? To stop me? You want me to continue living like this? What kind of sick god are you?”
He takes one final step up onto the railing and leans forward, but I hurry and grab his jeans with every last bit of energy I have. He stumbles as I pull him back, hitting his chest and head against the cold, rusted steel before collapsing to the ground on top of me. I let out a strained wheeze and shove him off onto the space between the rails and the barrier along the side.
I look over and see him staring through the holes in the barrier, blood spilling from a gash on his forehead and tears rolling down his cheeks. I almost feel bad, but then again, I did just save his life. Then, without warning, he gets up and begins climbing again. With an exasperated groan, I grab him by the shirt this time and pull him into a bear hug, squeezing him so tight that he can no longer use his arms. After a couple minutes of a struggle, he gives up and slumps back down to the ground. Sobs penetrate the peaceful air, and he buries his head in his hands.
I sit down next to him, my mind alight with all sorts of questions, and I try to decide how to react next. I can’t really leave him here, can I? But what can I do? He doesn’t even think I exist; I’m invisible for heaven’s sake.
I’d guess probably a half-hour slips by quietly. His sobs stop after a while, but his head remains firmly fixed to the insides of his arms. I don’t want to abandon him, but I’m beginning to worry about what my aunt will think if I don’t show up soon. Still, I can’t leave him to do something stupid. I could drag him, maybe? But I don’t know, he might think it’s the devil or something, seeing as he’s religious and all.
“Please don’t make me go back to school. Please.”
“What?” I ask, surprised by the sudden break in silence. He lifts his head up and stares past me.
“Why didn’t you send an angel earlier? When I needed you?”
“Well,” I begin, making crap up as I go along. “I’m here now, yeah?”
“Can you make me normal?”
“What?”
“Normal! Can you make me normal? Like everyone else?”
I feel like throwing up, and guilt suddenly rocks my chest.
“Hey, no one’s normal, kid.”
“More normal, I mean.”
I’m silent. For once, I don’t have a witty remark or a throwback, and even if I did, now probably wouldn’t be the time. He shakes his head, seemingly taking my silence as a rejection.
“How about making someone see me? I don’t need much. Just something to let me know I’m not invisible.”
A tear rolls down my cheek as I’m suddenly overwhelmed by the intimate dive into this boy’s heart. I can hear the pain infused into his words, his longing pouring out of his eyes with each tear. Funny, how all I wanted earlier was to be invisible, and it turns out that’s this kid’s living nightmare. I stare at him through my clouded eyes, feeling more powerless than I ever have before.
“Why don’t you go talk to someone or something? You know. I’m sure people just need the chance to get to know you.”
“No! I can’t! If you’re my angel, then you should have been listening to my prayers! I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I just can’t. I try, but I can’t. It’s like something takes my voice and I stand there looking stupid!”
“Well, you seem to be talking to me just fine.”
He lets out a tired sigh and puts his head in his hands, kicking a broken piece of wood with his toe.
“That’s different. You’re an angel.”
His words make me feel all fuzzy for a hot moment, but then the guilt returns, guilt for not noticing this kid before, for stalking him through the woods, for impersonating deity. Deity? Are angels deity? I don’t know, I never really went to church. Regardless, whatever they are, I’m not it.
“Okay, here’s the deal. You give me one more day, yeah? And I’ll see what I can do. Just go home for now, get yourself to class tomorrow, and I promise I’ll help you out. Deal?”
School starts tomorrow, so maybe I can find him or alert someone or something. I don’t know, it’s a long shot. Hopefully I’m visible by then again. I’ll go home and see if I can reverse what I did earlier and wish my invisibility away or whatever. There’s a stab to my heart as I realize that’s what this kid has been trying to do, for years apparently, and to no success.
He turns his head to look in the direction of my voice, his cheeks stained by the dirt tracks where his tears cut into his face, and he gives me a small nod.
“Okay.”
~
I stand on top of my board, looking above the crowd of students milling about before the beginning of class, taking care to look out for teachers as I do so. Turns out this invisibility thing only lasts a day, for me at least. So, one less thing to worry about.
The bell’s about to ring and I haven’t seen the kid yet. I looked him up in the school directory by his picture, and, as luck would have it, we have our first class together again this year, but I’m by the door to the classroom and he hasn’t shown up yet. The seconds tick away the final minute on the clock across the hallway, and each flick of the little red hand sends my blood pressure spiking even higher, my breaths quickening with each moment. What if he broke his deal? What if he went back to the bridge and flung himself off? The thought brings the threat of tears back to my face, and I’m a fraction of an instant away from breaking down when I see him.
He’s over by the stairs to the second floor, curled up and hugging his backpack, staring at the linoleum floor as the masses flow around him, all oblivious to his presence as they rush to their first class. I jump off my board and cut across the hallway, ignoring the insults hurled my way as I bump into people. Then, my good sense makes a presence and I slow to a casual walk, not wanting to appear weird and creepy for running up to him.
He looks up when I stop beside him and I lower my mask to give him a friendly smile.
“Hey! How’s it going? You were in my class last year, right? I think we’re in the same boat this year, too.”
He lowers his own mask. A smile passes his face, and I wonder if he recognizes my voice. I reach my hand out to help him up and he takes it.
“Sorry, I never really got to know you. My name’s Tess, what’s yours?”
“Wyatt,” he says shyly. It’s probably the first time I’ve heard him say anything inside school boundaries. I smile wider and take him by the hand back across the hall.
“Well, come on Wyatt. Don’t want to be late for class on the first day.”
As we’re crossing the threshold into the the room, the chiming of the bell echoes loudly across the campus from one end to the other.
Just in time.
Pioneers
From 50 million miles away it more resembles a clear, LED light bulb plugged in amongst strings of yellowish, incandescent ones than it does a blue planet, but that clear tint is unique in the night sky, and therefore beautiful. The eye is drawn to it, and lingers upon it wistfully, as a moth does a flame. The light looks inviting to an alien creature. Alien creatures desire a place to call home above all else. I know this, because I am now an alien. No wonder then that human life somehow found its way to that light so many millions of years ago. You would bend to pick up a golden rock at your feet, and you would strive to reach a silver light in the darkness. It is impossible to look up at Earth from this distance without gasping, as you would gasp if the rug of life were suddenly pulled out from under your feet.
From our module on Mars the night sky is astonishingly brilliant. There is little in the way of atmosphere to distort the strange constellations that are visible from this different site angle, nor are there city lights to degrade their brilliance, only the tritium reds and greens glowing from the monitors and guages of the many consoles inside the module.
High overhead, much higher than Earth’s golden, dream-stirring moon, a weak Martian moon blushes pale pink, like candlelight seen through cotton candy. Soon will come another moon, this one smaller and much closer than Earth’s. This one is frighteningly close as it trails by at a discernible, unlunar-like speed. This moon is not round, but is only “roundish.” It was clearly once a meteorite that is now as trapped as we are inside the tub-drain vortex of Mars’ gravitational pull. This moon is so close that you can distinguish it‘s bulges, and it’s crags without the aid of a glass as it snail crawls past you three times a day.
The nighttime landscape seen through the pinkish moonlight is the same as the daytime landscape in that it is desert-like, and barren. Somehow, even at night, there is the rusted, pinkish tint to go with the metallic odor that poisons the air, and the iron ore flavor that bites at your tongue, even in the recycled oxygen of the module.
In our bunk my partner sleeps. She is not whom I would have chosen, but she is my partner, and she is a good, sensible one. I am likely not the one she would have chosen either, but we have, over these two years, travelled together, feared together, worked together, cried together, and now we have also loved together, as the scientists said that we would. Those scientists seem to know everything, except what might come next. Should we ever get back to Earth, I wonder if she and I would part? Is it love we feel toward one another, or is it need? Does it even matter? Regardless, I am happy to have her, as she is a woman, and she makes it feel like love.
She wakes, and climbs up beside me. Together we watch the Earth glow among the lesser stars as we think our thoughts. Ours are different thoughts, surely, but also the same... as we are both humans, and alone, but we are at least alone together.
Macro vs Micro.
A humble match may seem insignificant amongst a forest of trees.
Yet light it on fire and it can burn down acres with relative ease.
Just like a small pebble can cause the calm waters to ripple.
One man’ s voice can change the thoughts of millions of people.
Just like tiny atoms hold within a great power.
Our insignificant lives have the potential to empower.
Escape Room
He needed to get out of here. He was running out of time.
It was dark. No, it was beyond that. Darkness had a prescence. But what was resting in his field of vision didn't have that.
He felt around, desparate. The key had to be here somewhere. He longed to wrap his fingers around its chilling metal.
His foot collided with what he suspected was cardboard.
He kneeled down, and ventured into what he now knew was a box.
Inside, he could tell, were books. He shook them out, one by one, their soft rustling like the flutter of wings. Their covers were raised, and he traced his hands over the words. He couldn't tell what they were.
He gave up on the books, temporarily. While his seconds were sparse, he could always scavenge and find a few more. He could search, search, and search again.
As he stood up, his anxiety kicked in. His chest tightened, his breath constricted. The ache in his mind was now raging, and the key was the only cure.
He put his arms out, and felt warped wood and gilded knobs. A cupboard. The knob's detailing dug into his palms as the doors squeaked open. The hinges need oil. But that wasn't a concern right now.
The inside was a void. Empty, with nothing that his fingers could detect. The dust floating around made the air thick, like his hands were drifting through water.
The world was closing in on him. He couldn't see it, but he could sense it.
As various emotions burned him to the core, he swept his hand across the cupboard's top. It flew across, so quickly that he barely registered the collision with the vase.
It tumbled through silence, then ripped it to shreds as it exploded into a thousand tiny diamonds.
But there was something else. Something that didn't belong to the vase. A light, metallic echo.
The key.
On his knees, he patted around, trying to be delicate so ruby red ribbons were not stitched onto his hands. The surface was the consistent, the same, sharp and grainy.
And then a brief absence of texture.
He had found it.
He had found freedom.
It felt like a promise in his hands. He went to the door and located the lock. Each click was a sweet note of music.
He turned the handle. Took a few cautious, unbelieving steps.
The breeze was warm. He could hear birds twittering on fenceposts, snatches of distant conversation. The possibility was overwhelmingly beautiful.
He still couldn't see anything.
What had he expected?
He'd been blind since birth.