icarus

The smile was forced. Soon it would not be. This was his automatic go to whenever he was afraid of showing the ‘appropriate’ response. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. There had been that one incident where his girlfriend at the time had been telling him about how one of her friends had to go get an abortion and he had started nervously laughing. Laughter is subtle. Everything is. She had berated him for laughing. He was embarrassed then. He was embarrassed now. Didn’t mean he would stop laughing.

The smile was forced. Soon it would not be. This was his go to response when he was afraid of showing the ‘appropriate’ one. In this case, that would be unadulterated - okay, maybe a little adulterated - fear. It was smooth. It was pretty flawless. He had expected some bumps.

He gripped the handles tight. And then let go. Very quickly, his natural fear kicked into gear and his hands went back around the handles. If anything went wrong, he wouldn’t be able to hold onto them for too long. The only person immune to this fear had been Icarus. And even he could have been fearful at the same time as he was curious. One of the two, maybe both led to his fall.

And then there was wonder.

He was kissing the sky, getting even more intimate with it.

The ground was falling away at his feet.

He looked around in wide-eyed wonder.

Below him, there were the fish farms. They had looked the same from the ground. From here, all eight of them were of different colors. His heart was giddy with joy. Or maybe it was the rapidly stratifying air. Either way, he was joyous.

And then there was the, well everything else. Green on this side. Desert on the other side. A thin dusty road served as the border, demarcation between the two. It was beautiful. Even more so than he could have imagined.

My phone. I should get my phone out. What if it falls.

He would not get his phone out till much later. But this thought would echo for the duration of the flight.

They were now over the desert. Soaring, gliding like an eagle. His right elbow rested on something. He looked to the side. It was the driver’s leg.

Don’t look down. His coach had warned them in jest. He could do nothing but look down. No fear. Just awe. At the beautiful and splendid world that he lived in. And was so small in. Insignificant speck. Indifferent universe. Something of that sort.

The jeeps were roaring around. Dust following in their wake. Huge eddies and clouds of dust. Sandstorms caused by huge steel monsters engineered by the ingenuity of human minds.

He was high in the air. They were turning around. Graceful. A swan. He saw the huge telephone tower. They would not hit it. Sweeping from underneath and past it. He looked for the starting point. It was this one. No, they were past it. It was that one. No, they were past it. It was that one. Yes, they were swooping down. He landed. Smooth. His heart was still in the sky. Above the clouds.