URIAH

Flying

Chapter 8

I close my eyes and I start telling a story.

This is the best advice my mom has ever given me. In a state of fear and in a moment when I miss her the most, I can close my eyes and recite a story in my head. She always believed in the power of words and storytelling and wanted me to practice a skill she knew I had potential for.

And so, with my eyelids closed, I let my words give light to the darkness.

She sang and she danced under the shining moonlight. She was twirling around the campfire belting out the words in a lovely manner to the most heart breaking songs. She avoided his eyes more than ever, whoever the man was. She has not yet laid eyes on him to know for sure if she knew him. The moment the song finishes, she curved her back and howled like the loneliest wolf of the pack.

She sang. She danced. She howled. But she had not yet looked around her. She had not yet seen what she was missing out on. Breathless, she lowered her gaze on the fire, crackling, and slowly diverted it to the man sitting on the ground beside it. Black hair, ever so dark and eyes, ever so mysterious. Still breathless, with heaving lungs, she searched for the molecules of air that would lower her adrenaline and give her serenity.

She knew him. She loved him. And she still does. She looks at the sky and wonders if the first humans to have roamed Earth, those with humanity and consciousness and intelligence, in the ages where there was no proven science, believed that the Sun will always come back out. Because, that night, as a conscious intelligent human being with all of the researches that she would want at the touch of a finger, she feared that her life was made for the night in a way that would never allow the Sun to resurface again. For the first time, she feared that she was alone, but desperately knew that she wasn't at the same time. For the first time, she couldn't hear the Sun calling out her name and all she could see was the wind blinding her sight forever.

I flutter my eyelids open. I look out the airplane window on my right. I look to my left. Nathan's sleeping.

It's so quiet in the plane, I can almost hear the wind pushing the clouds away. I stare at the moon shine and remember my story. It was so fluid and coursed through me like it was a memory. I guess my mom didn't misread my potential. I like storytelling, but the stories I make up or write always make me wonder if there is an underhanded meaning to them. If they're something I'm looking for or something I fear.

"Hey," Nathan mumbles, his eyes still closed.

"Hi," I whisper back. I look at the TV on the seat in front of me. I remember everything my family told me before I left to pass through security. Every whisper I heard during every hug I gave.

Kick ass, Ben said to me.

Alert, careful and light on your feet. Okay? were my dad's words to me.

I wish you weren't leaving for Venice for two reasons, my sister said knowing I'd figure the two reasons out easily. Reason number one, the obvious one: she doesn't want me to get hurt. Reason two: she wants to go to Venice too and is insanely jealous.

I love you. Remember to tell stories, my mom, ever so wisely, told me. Those words reminded me of the advice she had given me long ago.

Take care of yourself, dear. My boy hasn't properly grieved over his father. The funeral gave him closure, but his judgement might still be clouded. Take care of him too.

Rosa's words don't leave me, because I would never think of Nathan's judgement, out of all people's, as clouded. But then I remember a quote from a movie that perfectly describes why it would be.