Icarus

I shoved random things into my backpack, a comic book, a highlighter marker, stickers, paper clips, anything I could find. I'm going to fly tonight, and I'll go higher than I've ever gone before. I'll tell Juni about the stars, I'll tell him about the planets and even the sun. I'll get close enough to the sun. That's where I've always wanted to go. I wanted to know if it was possible for me to be near it without burning up into nothing. I'll go there and come back to tell everyone, knowing they won't believe me. Maybe I'll see Dad. When he passed, mom said that if I looked to the starts I could see the shape of him. But the people on Earth are small, we can't see anything from the ground. Tonight, I'll see him. I slung my backpack onto my shoulders and tiptoed from my room to my little brother's.

"Psst, Juni? Are you awake?"

He was asleep of course, buried beneath a mountain of spaceship blankets, he was drooling on his astronaut pillow. My little brother is the only one who knows about my secret. He's seen me fly. He knows what I can do. I've never worried about him telling anyone, who could believe a nine-year-old kid saying his older brother can fly? Nah, this was ours to keep.

"Juni..."

Placing a hand on the back of his Star Wars pajamas, I kneeled by his rocketship shaped bed frame and gently shook him awake. His eyes opened, he stared at me with his brow puckered in confusion, but then broke out into a grin. He was missing his two front teeth but smiled brilliantly nonetheless.

"Mikey? Are you gonna fly?"

He asked in small voice, using his little fists to rub the sleepy crust from his eyes.

"Yeah, buddy. I'm gonna go really high tonight, I'll be like a shooting star and when I come down-Boom!"

I pressed my hands into his stomach to tickle his ribs and he burst into giggles.

"Shhhh! You'll wake mom and Mr. Carson and then we''ll both be busted."

I whispered, covering my mouth with my hand. Juni mocked me and rolled his eyes before sitting up in his bed, I showed him the contents of my backpack and he nodded his head in approval.

"What's it like to fly?"

"You feel like a bird."

I said.

"I've never been a bird, so what does being a bird feel like?"

He titled his head at me, blinking his large brown eyes. He looked so much like Dad, but he never got to know him. Dad died before Juni was born, and every time I ask how or why Mom always gets angry and said it was something so stupid I'd never be able to understand. My dad was a scientist, he was always working in his lab and whenever he found the time he would let me sit and watch him work on his experiments. "You my son, are my greatest experiment." He'd say. Shaking the memory off, I swallowed the painful lump in my throat and put my hands under Juni's arms lifitng him up out of his bed.

"It feels like this! Whoosh! Whoosh!"

I tossed him up and put him on my shoulders running all around his room in every direction until he whisper-shrieked that he was getting dizzy.

"Flying is awesome!"

I set Juni back on his bed and chuckled, smoothing his crazy hair back away from his forehead.

"I'm gonna touch the sun."

I said, picking my backpack up.

"You can't touch the sun that's too dangerous, Mikey. Remember Icarus? He flew too closed to the sun and he died."

Juni protested.

"Where'd you learn that?"

"Sarah Baker."

Juni wiggled his eyebrows at me in a way that I hadn't even known was possible for a nine-year-old to do. The sly look on his face revealed that since he'd been crushing on Sarah Baker for several months now this small bit of information made him feel both intelligent and empowered.

"Yeah, well, tell your little girlfriend Icarus had wings made of wax. I don't have wings, I've got a backpack."

I smiled, ruffling Juni's hair up as his nose and mouth scrunched together.

"She's not my girlfriend... yet."

Shaking my head, I pulled the spaceship blankets up over my brother and tucked him in again.

"Go back to sleep, buddy. There's plenty of time for girls in your dreams."

Juni's cheeks flushed red, he hid his face underneath the comforter as I stood up, preparing to leave. I made it to the door before he poked his head up and called out to me.

"Hey, Mikey?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't fly to close to the sun, okay?"

I squeezzed the doorknob and nodded my head.

"I promise."

In the hallway I had to tiptoe past Mom's door to make it downstairs. They creaked and stuttered with every step I took. My spine stiffened on the last stair, I paused, holding my breath. When nothing happened, I slipped out of the backdoor into the cool midnight air. From the upstairs window, I spotted Juni watching me. I walked to the center of the yard and leapt up into the air, floating above the grass. Giving him a salute, I raised my arms and propelled myself deep in the black sky. The wind rushed all around my body, I could feel it's crushing force under my ribs and reached into the sky with both hands out in front of me. The sensation of floating had a dizzying effect on me at first, but I balanced myself out and pushed for higher, higher, and higher. I could see the sun from here, orbiting on the other side of the Earth. I looked up, craning my neck back to soak in the view a billion galazxies, a billion stars, shining above my head so close I could reach out and touch one. The problem with Icarus was that he got greedy, he'd achieved the hard part of flying but he wanted more. For me, right now, this was enough. The presence of my dad in the stars among me never felt stronger.