Fly

With the covers pulled over my head, my room darker than the city night and the steady breath of my sister in the bed below me, I would put my hands together, close my eyes, and pray. I’m not sure who I was praying to. I knew God then, I suppose. Each night asking for the same thing. Never receiving, but I’d never stop. I couldn’t sleep unless I prayed. Dear Lord, I thank you for such a nice day. Please let us all have good dreams tonight and a good day tomorrow. And please, please, please let me have the power to fly. In Jesus name I pray, amen. I thought these words each night, and each morning I’d wake from my nightmares to find that I, in fact, could not fly. I was always disappointed.

“Jezebel, what are you thinking about?”

“Flying.”

There is laughter. “Flying is for the birds, dear.”

“Then I’d like to be a bird.”

“And what would you do as a bird? You couldn’t speak, or walk.”

“But I’d fly.”

“Flight isn’t special to a bird. I bet they’d dream of walking, if they could.”

“I bet you’re wrong.”

And there is a crash and a scream and crying, crying, crying. And I bet then that the birds never cried. For what on earth could make a flying creature cry?

My mother had always encouraged my imagination, in her own, roundabout way. She died when I was eleven, sucking at a pipe. She looked at me, laughter in her eyes. “You can have some, too. When you’re fifteen.” And she died that very second. My father died earlier. He held the whip in his hand, tears were streaming down my face. Crack, crack, crack – and he was dead. My sister says that’s when my eyes went dull. In the moments before my father was no longer known to me, the angels turned away and the light left my fragile eyes.

When I was twelve, I built a castle. It was high upon a hill and guarded by a fearsome dragon. He was a terrible brute, but I loved him, and he loved me. He burned who I told him to burn. He would burn me if I asked. But I could not bear the idea of hurting him so much. Because I knew my dragon loved me as his own. His fire kept the dark away, the cold away, the dreams away. And most importantly, the people. Whenever someone knocked on the door, when a kindly boy in tin foil came with thoughts of rescuing me, my dragon would burn them. When my parents thought they had the right to return from the dead, he burned the both of them. And I didn’t even have to ask. He protected me from the world – all of the world. Because I wanted none of it.

“You won’t ever leave me, will you?”

“No. Never.”

“You have to promise.”

“I promise.”

“They all left me, Dragon. Each and every one of them. Say the words.”

“They left you when I burned them, Jezebel. I promise I will never leave.”

“Good. And they left me when I killed them, Dragon.”

He did not argue. As much as I loved dragon, life at the castle became dull. Every day I awoke, I studied, perhaps I’d read or write in my journal. And each night before bed I would stare at the wall. I would listen to dragon breathe, and the castle creak. I would curse the darkness and the people who’d knock at my door. And eventually the weight of my spite would become so heavy that it would pull my eyelids closed and I would fall into the ether of my dreams.

I dreamed of the sky and the seas, of running, singing, flying. Always flying. High above the rest, smiling down as I wrapped myself in the warmth of the sun and the cool of the wind. I would chase the sunset as I flew. Faster and faster, higher and higher. I followed the sunset around the world. Eventually, I would become too tired, and the darkness would befall me. I awoke, then. Stretching, yawning, rubbing my eyes. Then I would study and write and spite and hope my dreams would come as sweet the next night.

A day did came where I wanted to leave the castle. I wanted to look upon the world, I wanted to learn it. Perhaps, I wanted to change it.

“Where shall we go first, Dragon?”

“We shall go nowhere.”

And I had to paused. I blinked one. Twice. “What do you mean?”

“You will not like the world.”

“Then we will chase the sunset.”

“The sunset dies each night – there is nowhere to chase it.”

“I want to go, and you promised you would never leave me.”

“And you would leave me?”

So I stayed in the castle and tried again the next night, and the night after that. Dragon was growing older, and I did not want his breath to cease before he flew with the sunset. I did not want his breath to cease before he flew me over the sunset. I asked and I asked, and the dragon always told me no. No, no, no. You built this castle, Jezebel. You invited me in to stay. I have the right to leave, dragon. And he would look away. I am not stopping you. I cried that night. I did not dream.

A time passed before I dare ask Dragon again. His answer did not change. I became angry. Dragon tried to console me, to get me to understand how much he loved me and why he simply could not let me go. He died that night, but accidentally. I told him to leave me alone, and not a breath later he was gone. My castle crumbled. I stared into the sunset that night. My eyes were dull, but my heart was full. I cursed the sunset. I cursed it for making me love it. The night my dragon died, as my castle lay in ruin, I turned away from the sunset. It became quite dull, that night.

I only faced the sunrise. I walked toward it and knew I would never catch it. It ran toward me, and disappeared as it did so. Each day it would brush by me, warm and bright, beckoning me to turn and watch it die. I thought then that Dragon was right, that each and every day a new sunrise was born, and each and every day it would die at sunset. I thought this before I slept, and it helped to weigh my eyes down and pull me into the darkness of my sleep.

One morning I woke up quite blind. My eyelids were so heavy I could not open them. My body was so heavy my shoulders sagged. My steps were slow. Only my parents occupied my thoughts. My parents, my dragon, my sunrise. I could not see them anymore. Only darkness.

I wandered east still. I did not trip or falter, as I did not need eyes to find my way. I reached out and found walls, tables, trees. Sometime after I first found myself blind, I continued my wandering, hands outstretched, and somehow another hand found its way into mine. I snatched it away, eyes searching as if I could see.

There was laughter. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You were about to step into the water.”

I smelled the air, found that I could not smell, and nodded like I could. “Perhaps I was trying to step into the water.”

“It would be a very long fall.”

“Perhaps I wanted to fall.”

“But why? The water did nothing to you. You shouldn’t make it kill you.”

“The fall would kill me.”

“You would not die until you hit the water. You’d be perfectly fine during the fall.”

I had nothing to say to that.

“What is your name?”

“Why?”

Laughter. “Because you are interesting. Come, now. It’s only a name.”

“Only a name? Names are everything.”

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

I shook my head. “Names are everything. When you are asked who you are, your first thought is your name. And what do you think when you hear the words mother, father? Our names are what we use to define ourselves. A rose might smell the same if you called it a poppy, but I’m sure it would know as well as anyone who came upon it that it is not a poppy.”

I imagined her smiling, then. It was in her voice. “My name is Annabel.”

I paused. And because I had not spoken to anyone since Dragon, because a part of me did not want this conversation to end, I bit my cheek, and I told her my name.

“Jezebel,” She repeated. She laughed. “We’re both bells.”

“No. I’m Jezebel.”

“And I’m Annabel. But we can also be bells.” She paused. “Do you like coffee, Jezebel?”

“No.” And because I was lonely I added, “But I like tea.”

“There’s a café right down the road. Come with me.”

“I have no money.”

“You don’t need money.”

“Okay.”

I thought about my castle then, and how Dragon would have burned her if she came to knock at my door. I thought about Dragon dead and my castle ruined. I wondered why I followed her. I have always been lonely. It has never bothered me before.

We sat.

“Why are your eyes closed?”

“Why are your eyes open?”

“How would you know my eyes are open?”

“How would you know my eyes were closed if yours were not open?”

Laughter. “Fair point. Why did you want to fall, then?”

“Who said I wanted to fall?”

“Who walks off a cliff when they don’t want to fall?”

“People who want to fly.”

“You have no wings.”

“Who needs wings?”

Laughter, again. “Certainly birds do. Planes.”

“A leaf doesn’t need wings to fly.”

“A leaf also does not decide where it goes.”

“Have you spoken to a leaf?”

More laughter. “You win, again.”

“Maybe the leaf doesn’t want to decide where to go.”

“That’s a decision, in itself. Choosing the freedom of living without choice is the biggest choice one could make. And it all comes down to the leaf deciding that it’d rather fly than fall, no?”

I did not respond.

“Why are your eyes closed?”

There was a clink before me and a warmth rose to my face. I could not smell it. But I could feel the warmth on my face and for a moment I thought of my dreams and the heat from the sun that only I could feel as I chased the sunset around the world. I smelled something sweet and earthy, smooth in its warmth. And I thought of Dragon and his fire as he burned the people who knocked on my door, and the times where I thought of asking him to burn me.

“I didn’t order anything.”

Laughter. Again. “You didn’t have to.”

“Why?”

“Why are your eyes closed?”

I took a sip. It was as warm and smooth as it smelled. Sweet, but not too sweet. Earthy. I felt close. And, for some reason, I thought of my mother and my father and the days that I killed them. I wondered what they were doing now.

“Do you like it?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“I didn’t make it.”

“I’m not paying for it.”

More of that laughter. “Where are you from?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re interesting, and you don’t look like you’re from around here.”

“What do people from around here look like?”

She did not answer. She was still there. I could hear her breath, hear her slurp her coffee. I grew impatient very quickly. “Well?”

“It’s not fun, is it? To ask a question and be met with silence.”

“I’m from the west.”

“The coast?”

“Yes.”

She slurped her coffee. I sipped my tea. She set her cup down first. “North or south?”

“North.”

“Why did you leave?”

“I met a dragon and he carried me away.”

And she laughed. I must be funny. “I’ve never met a dragon before. What are they like?”

“Selfish.”

“Oh?”

“No.”

“I’m confused.”

“I’m sorry.”

She slurped her coffee. I drank my tea. We sat in silence. I finished my tea.

“Why are your eyes closed?”

“I should go.”

“Do you have somewhere to be?”

“Alone. Asleep.”

Laughter. It was beginning to sound like bells. “Fair enough. Will I see you again?”

I did not answer. I said nothing more to her and I walked out of the café. I chose a direction and I walked. I walked until I couldn’t hear her bell laughter and I then I sat upon a bench and decided I was not going to move from it ever again. My heart was beating light through my veins and my mind was filled with sunrise. I felt a warmth from inside, and I could not place it. I had not answered her, and I should have. I should have. Because I wanted to speak with her again. I wanted to walk with her again. I wanted to see her. And hear her laughter. And I wanted her to die for it. But she would not die upon my thoughts, and in my dream was her laughter. I awoke to a warmth on my face, the smell of dew. The sound of birds. The water on the rocks.

“Why did you sleep on a bench?”

I fell off the bench.

She laughed.

“How long have you been sitting there?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why are you sitting there?”

“I asked if I was going to see you again and you didn’t answer. I decided that meant it was up to me, and I wanted to see you again. This is not a big town, Jezebel. I was going to check the inn, but I found you here before I got there. Funny how things just work out.”

I could feel her smile.

“Why did you sleep on a bench?”

“I don’t have any money.”

“Why are your eyes closed?”

I paused. I opened my mouth. Closed it. Took a breath. “They are too heavy to open.”

“Would you like some help?”

“I don’t need help.”

“I’ll hold your eyes open. It won’t be any hassle. In fact, you’ll be helping me. Because
I’ll enjoy it so much.”

“I’m okay.”

“The biggest lie we tell is that we’re okay.”

And I thought of Dragon, and how I wouldn’t ask him to burn me not because I did not want to die, but because I did not want him to kill me. I thought about my mother and the pipe, my father and the whip. My sister breathing next to me. My brother, who I left alone.

“Okay.”

And she took my hands in hers and the world became light, and I floated above it all. I opened my eyes, and I saw her bright smile and her golden hair and her kind eyes and I thought of her laughter like bells. I kissed her then.

The days are longer now. The nights are warmer. With the covers pulled over my head, the room dark, she breathes next to me and I take her hands. I think about the sunset and the sunrise, chasing a dream on the back of a nightmare. My eyes, open.

My hands in hers, I fly.