One Day I’ll Fly Away
A Haunting Tale
It’s morning and the sun sparkles rose-gold across the ripples of the sea, like strands of silk in a koi pool. I see it from above… high above.
I pick the loveliest part of the sky and melt into the air, as if I were just a breath on the breeze.
My body wavers in the vermillion and peach streaks the sunrise paints across the sky. I am shimmering in the air as I hover, holding my breath in anticipation.
Then I swoop down in a wide semicircle, feeling the wind in my hair, all around my body, flowing over me, holding me aloft. I plunge along the surface of the sea, barely a foot above it, so close that my passage leaves a wake behind me.
I lift my head and swoop upwards, almost vertical, higher, higher… so high it catches my breath… higher still until I am light-headed, until I reach that point at which I stop, teetering on the brink, neither climbing nor falling. A fleeting moment I relish.
Then I flip in mid-air, like a dolphin, streamline my body into free fall. Air rushes past me, sea surges towards me. I laugh out loud with the sheer exhilaration of it all.
I leave it until the very last possible moment – so late my toes dip into cool water as I make the turn – lifting my head to swoop along the surface of the sea once more, flying straight into the sun as it rises above the horizon, growing brighter, brighter…
The curtains were pulled open unannounced, flooding the bedroom with bright sunshine. Ellen blinked hard. “Time to get up, dear,” her husband Edward said cheerily.
Edward was a morning person. Ellen was not.
“There must be more than this,” she groaned, flinging an arm defensively across her eyes. “What do you need?” he asked. Edward never wanted anything more from life. He had a job, a wife, friends. If he would have liked more free time to spend at his allotment, he never said so. Edward had everything he wanted and wanted for nothing. He was a man of simple pleasures.
“I need…” She always struggled to put her yearning into words. “I want to live, not just exist.”
Edward shrugged. He never minded the drudgery. Sometimes he even seemed to enjoy it. He worked all day, looked after her without complaint and spent precious free minutes on his allotment. She loved him dearly, and knew he loved her.
Yet if truth be told, she craved more. She felt as if she had been waiting all her life for something… but for what?
I’m flying again, along the cliff edge, the sky bright as periwinkles and without so much as a wisp of cloud. Waves crash along the foot of the cliffs, way below me and I pull in a deep breath, full of tingling salt.
More than anything else, there is the sensation of perfect peace mingled with an excitement that strains my every nerve to the utmost – but in the most thrilling way.
I look back at the town. I can pick out our house, tiny on the downward slope of the cliffs. I have a fleeting moment of nostalgia, but then the craving to fly obliterates everything else. I turn away
She felt as if she had been WAITING all her life for SOMETHING, but what?
from the cliffs, flying out to sea.
I fly until sea is all there is, until I can see nothing else. There is no frame of reference out here, nothing with which to orientate myself. Just the blue of sea and the blue of sky, merging along the horizon. I don’t know where I am going, and I don’t care.
When I am suspended in the air, with no landing in sight, I am forced to rely on my own wings. I may not know where I am going, but I know that I can rely on myself. As long as I have those wings, the wind will carry me.
Have you ever wondered where you’re going?” Ellen asked Edward. They were outside on their patio, looking over the cliffs to the sea. “I always know where I’m going.” Dear Edward; he did always know where he was going. He’d had his life mapped out since he was a boy – school, job, marriage, children, promotion, retirement… even the idea of death didn’t seem to faze him. It was the way of the world, just life, and Edward saw no purpose in fighting it.
“We’re all made of star dust, you know,” Ellen announced.
“Star dust?” Edward looked down at her with a puzzled frown. “We’re made of skin and bone and blood and sweat and tears.”
That was indeed what Edward was made of, Ellen thought. He rested one hand on her shoulder, his fingers dark with the dirt from his allotment, now ingrained into the skin forever.
Down-to-earth, that’s what they called people like Edward. Ellen had never been down to earth.
“Star dust! Your head is in the clouds, dear,” he said fondly.
Perhaps it was, but was that so bad? She’d always had huge questions; questions she suspected probably had no answers. Yet in all their time together, she realised she had never heard Edward question anything. He had always simply accepted life as it was, warts and all.
“Don’t you ever ponder the big questions in life?” she asked. He raised a quizzical eyebrow and didn’t bother to reply. For once, Ellen knew the answer: hedoesn’t. Hisquestions–ifhehasany–are rational, necessary… answer able.
“Don’t you ever feel the desire to fly?” she ventured.
“Why ever would I want to fly? I’d just fall flat on my face and hurt myself!”
She’d known the answer to that question too. Edward had his allotment. It was where he was happiest, where he had his feet planted firmly in the ground – he always had done – and he had no need for all this flying nonsense.
It was then that she understood what she’d been waiting for all her life. For decades she’d kept her feet firmly anchored for the sake of those she loved, knowing she could run faster, think bigger, fly higher. Yet she had waited for them anyway because she loved them.
Now it was time for her to stop waiting. Now she had to run as fast as she could, think as big as she could, fly as high as she could. Momentarily, she wished that Edward could come with her, but she knew he couldn’t. She also knew she couldn’t let that stop her – and he wouldn’t want it to.
“Did you know,” Ellen mused out loud, “Leonardo DaVinci said that once you have tasted flight you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward – for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”
Edward shrugged and got to his feet. The air was growing chilly.
“How fanciful!” he remarked as he kicked the brake off on Ellen’s wheelchair, turned it around with expert ease and wheeled her back into their lounge.
Istand here on the eaves of our house, looking out over the cliffs towards the sea. My longing threatens to overwhelm me. I lift my arms. I hear the heavy rustle of huge wings. I feel their weight, their movement as the wind caresses them, seducing me, making me yearn for the open sky. I lower my arms and feel the feathers – my feathers – settle back into place with a soft sigh.
Yes, I can do this. I can fly. I decide there and then that it is time to stop letting fear hold me back. It’s time to go out there and live in the sunlight.
I close my eyes and spread my wings.
Edward went back out onto the patio. He wasn’t sure why. He’d never had that childlike wonder Ellen had, but tonight there was a frisson in the air. He couldn’t put his finger on it. But he knew it was good. The sunset was beautiful, but it didn’t make him catch his breath the way it did for Ellen. For him, nature was something to control, to prune, to shape to his bidding. Suddenly, something made him duck – a bird swooping close overhead? He looked up. A shadow crossed the sky above him, sweeping out to sea. As he watched, a single white feather floated down and landed at his feet. Were there seabirds around here that big, or…? He turned and called into the kitchen. “Ellen?” But Ellen was no longer there.
In all their time TOGETHER, she’d NEVER HEARD him question anything