The Flying Man

The sudden loss of the ground from beneath his feet did not take him by as much surprise as he thought it would. But it was still a magnificent feeling. The wind rushing past his face, faster than he’d ever felt before, the feel of cold air pushing through his fingers made him feel so very much alive that he pitied the people walking on the streets below him- ants who would never understand how it felt to just leave the shackles of gravity behind.

His arms outstretched, he shouted at them so that they could see him. And they did, which gave him the opportunity to laugh at them. Why not? They had laughed at him before when he had told them that he could fly. His parents- what would they say if they saw him now?

More importantly, what would he do now? Now that he knew for a fact that he wasn’t ‘just like everybody else’, could he go back to them? It would mean returning to the ground, something he was not really looking forward to- but at least this time, maybe he would be celebrated. This time he would be remembered. If not today, then perhaps, in time he would receive the recognition he deserved. He would become a hero. He would save the world.

-

“You stupid bitch!”

She had received harder blows to the face before, but for some reason he scared her a thousand times more than he had ever done before. ‘Funny’, she thought to herself bitterly as she let herself fall helplessly to the floor. ‘You’d think I’d have gotten used to this by now.’

Inside though, she knew the real reason for her fear. This wasn’t just another bad night for him, though in all respects, in was an all too familiar scene. The TV was on behind him, turned on to the highest volume in hopes that it would drown out his all too loud curses. She knew very well that it didn’t. Perhaps that was some consolation. Even if he did not notice the looks of pity that their neighbors gave her whenever they passed by, she did. They knew. And although she had always resented them for never doing anything to help, maybe, just maybe, tonight would be the night when one of them would decide that this has gone on for long enough. Perhaps tonight they would break down the apartment’s front door, come in and rescue her.

Because if they didn’t, then tomorrow night would be too late.

She didn’t know exactly how she knew this. Perhaps it was that wild look in his eyes that told her that the rancid stench of alcohol in his breath wasn’t the only thing that made him a monster tonight. Perhaps it was because the things he was saying seemed so distant to her now that she couldn’t exactly understand what he was saying, what it was that he was so angry about, what it was that she had done wrong this time.

He was going to kill her tonight. The gun he had introduced to her face so many times before was finally going to be used.

He continued hitting her for what felt like forever. And still no one came. Maybe if she could just get to the front door and unlock it-

She pulled herself to her feet. It took a lot more effort than before. Getting up would only get harder every time he hit her. It had to stop. ‘God please, let it end tonight.’ Suddenly it felt like the world around her had started to blur and dim. There was only him, the gun he was holding, and the front door. Ignoring the pain, she started limping towards her salvation.

She could hear him shouting after her. She didn’t have to see him to know that he was pointing the gun at her back, threatening to shoot her if she didn’t stop. She didn’t care anymore. Or was it that she couldn’t care? Maybe the ringing in her head was stopping her from thinking properly either.

Everything stopped when they heard the screaming outside, coming from a voice that was neither hers nor his. She spun around, and in one brief second, saw the flying man. It didn’t matter that she didn’t see him for long. The point was that he caught that brief glimpse too. And even in his drunken stupor, amazingly he knew well enough that something terribly wrong was happening outside. It was enough to send him turning away from her, running up to the open balcony to look for him again.

As if God was telling her this was her moment, the ringing in her head stopped, and somehow the room came into focus again. The door was so close to her now.

But what was even closer was the kitchen counter, and the knife lying innocently on it, calling her name.

-

He watched as she came at the man from behind, carrying a knife. The man hadn’t noticed her yet, too busy looking out at him with a look of disbelief on his face. He wondered if he should warn the man of his wife behind him, the look on her face betraying her cruel intentions. He knew very well that he beat her terribly- the residents of the apartment talked about it often. Maybe for that, it would be better if he just watched. He had contemplated barging in and saving her himself from time to time. But tonight, it appeared that she would save herself. Even if it would mean prison.

“It’s because you’re scared,” he thought to himself as he flew on, away from them. “Just because you can fly, it doesn’t mean you can save her. You can’t dodge bullets.”

-

She was telling him to go to bed again. If she came back out a third time to remind him again, he knew that she would start shouting. He hated it when she shouted. It scared him for one, but was also unfair because he wasn’t allowed to do his share of shouting. But then he never got his share of anything. His parents had their share of being able to stay up and watch TV late at night. His little sister, Lila got more attention than he did. His brother could even come home late if he wanted to, though it made mother angry sometimes. He could hear her shouting at him sometimes, while he was lying awake in bed. Still it never got any worse than that. Perhaps someday, he thought to himself as he got up hesitantly from his place on the family couch, he would try and see what might happen if he just chose not to get up.

Maybe when he was a little bigger.

He looked out the sliding doors, past the balcony where he was never allowed to play, out onto the city below. He wondered sometimes, what it would be like if he could fly out into the night. He’d come back, of course. Even superheroes needed food. It’s just that perhaps, if he could fly, no one would notice if he stayed up late. He would go into his bedroom, turn off the lights then just fly out the window.

He’d even be able to fly to school. He’d fly circles around the school bus- maybe they would be nicer to him if they knew he was different. Maybe he’d have more friends then.

But real people can’t fly. Or at least that’s what his father said.

He was just about to take his gaze away from the balcony, and return to face the monsters in the darkness of his bedroom when he saw him. For one very brief instant that felt as though it would last forever- the flying man went past the balcony, shouting something that he could not make out. But he sounded happy. So happy that he contemplated opening the sliding doors and jumping out after him. Maybe he’d catch him. It was a dream that had to wait though, as he heard his mother’s footsteps coming out of her bedroom again…

-

He’d never actually seen the boy before, but he looked familiar nonetheless. Perhaps it was that glint in the kid’s eyes that he recognized. He could tell, then, that the boy wanted nothing more than to throw those doors open and fly out after him.

“Not yet!” he called at him, hoping that he would hear. “Not yet!”

-

It was strange to see the room so empty. She’d only been here last year, and now it looked like someone else was occupying the place. Was he that much in trouble? Why hadn’t he asked for help? Even that bookshelf that he had been so proud of was gone- along with everything else in the room save for a simple wooden desk and a workstation chair that looked as though it would fall apart if she sat on it. The typewriter on the desk was the only thing she remembered seeing the last time she was here. That and the wastepaper basket beneath the table, filled to the brim with crumpled paper. Having failed at its job, the whole, bare room was filled with crumpled paper. Failed attempts.

She called out his name again. It didn’t surprise her when he did not answer. Perhaps he was somewhere else. This room was so devastatingly empty that she had to wonder why he did this to himself. The bare, white walls had black scribbling on them in some places where the photographs she took used to hang. You could tell where they used to be by the patches on the wall that were a slightly different shade of color.

The room disturbed her. Yet there was something about the bare, curtainless glass doors behind that wasteland of used paper, and the lone desk standing in the center that made her raise the camera that hung at her neck.

The room wasn’t the only thing that appeared in the picture.

-

The next room he passed was empty. He did not give it a second glance.

-

“I thought you don’t believe in that ‘best friends eventually become something more’ bullshit,” she said calmly to his face.

“Just because it’s in the books I write, it doesn’t mean it’s what I believe in,” he tried. Though he wasn’t exactly sure what he was trying for exactly. “Look, it’s not bullshit.”

She stared at him, for a while, before, wordlessly, she backed off and walked past the kitchen counter straight to the door. It looked like she wouldn’t stop, but stop she did, before turning around to look at him for what suddenly felt like the last time. “Look,” she said. “This is hardly the kind of thing you should be telling me two nights before your wedding.”

“But I don’t love her,” he protested. ‘She’s not you,’ he wanted to add, but the words got lost somewhere on the tip of his tongue. This was what he hated most about being in front of her. It’s not that he was afraid of saying it; it was more towards being afraid of saying it wrong.

“Your brain isn’t even connected to your mouth right now, is it?” she sighed. It was the look of exasperation. This confession business wasn’t exactly new to her, he realized. It had happened at least three times.

The answer was always the same.

“Look, think about it properly. But no matter what answer you end up with, mine is still ‘no’. I’m sorry. But that concept about best friends becoming lovers really is bullshit,” she said finally. And in an instant, she was already out the door, letting it swing close by itself behind her.

He stared at the closed door for what felt like forever, until finally, sighing to himself, “I just had too much to drink…” he decided that it was time to call it a night. Or at least, time to subject himself to lying awake in bed, torturing himself for that answer until morning by which time he would be suffering the most massive hangover known to man.

As he turned away from the front door and started to make his way towards his bedroom, he caught his glimpse of the flying man just right past the balcony.

“Waaaaay too much to drink,” he added finally.

-

It was the sound of the sirens below him that drew his attention away from the man, not that there was anything particularly interesting about what was happening in that room anyway. If he had the time, he would have stopped to tell him that it really was just about having too much to drink. The woman who had just left was on a pedestal, but she wasn’t the one for her. It was sad- he understood to an extent, what it felt like to go through life comparing everyone else to that one person, but there was nothing he could do about it anyway.

There was a crowd forming on the sidewalk outside the building. What exactly they were looking at, he couldn’t see from where he was, and so he flew lower to get a better look.

Something else caught his attention before he reached the ground, though. Plain and simple, it was a person calling his name. How the voice of the little girl standing across the street, away from the crowd, could rise above their excited murmurs, he didn’t know. Nor did it occur to him to wonder. Turning away from the crowd and flying towards her seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

The little girl couldn’t have been more than ten years old. And yet there was a way in which she smiled at him as he approached that made him somehow feel like the girl was older than that. Much, much older.

“Hey mister,” she said plainly. “I’m lost. Do you think you could take me home?”

And he thought, ‘Why not?’ It wasn’t like he had anything pressing to do right now anyway. “Alright,” he said softly, outstretching his hands towards her. “Take my hand.”

“I don’t want to fly,” she protested. “I’m scared of heights. Please walk me home?”

Walk? It hadn’t really been that long since he’d left the ground, but for some reason the idea of landing now seemed so distant to him. He was hesitant at first- a part of him wondered- if he landed now, would he be able to fly again? What if it was just a one time thing?

“Please,” the girl said again. “Walk home with me.”

He closed his eyes and sighed deeply. It couldn’t hurt anyway, he told himself. Landing in front of the girl, he tried his best not to show his discomfort at the idea of having to walk again in front of her. The girl happily took his hand this time, and they started walking down the road.

“What happened back there anyway?” he asked her as they glanced at the ambulance parked not too far away from the crowd. Perhaps the ambulance was for the wife and husband he’d seen on his way down, he thought to himself.

“No,” the girl said suddenly, smiling cheerfully. It was as though she had heard his thoughts. “We both know that’s not what it’s for. The ambulance for the wife stopped here a long time ago.”

He stopped abruptly. Staring at the still smiling girl for a while before they continued walking.

“So you figured out who I am yet?” the girl asked.

“Yes,” he answered plainly. “I know who you are.”

They walked the rest of the journey in silence.