Walter Williams can fly. Literally. Not in a shiny airplane or even with majestic wings all his own. When he has a mind to Walter Williams can simply defy the arrogant tyranny of gravity and soar as high as courage and breath will allow. Walter Williams can fly. Like Apollo. Like Superman. Like every kid with the imagination to dream and the desire to be as free as the clouds and as unencumbered as the birds in the midday sky.
Walter has no idea why he can fly. He discovered this unusual fact when he was a boy but he never dared shared it with anyone. He was sitting on the roof of the apartment building he and mother lived in when he first realized that he had the ability to fly. Though he was always afraid of heights, Walter often dared the roof because it was the only place where he could be alone with his thoughts and his books and his festering envy of all of the kids to whom laughter and acceptance came so easily. The roof was cool and quiet and, most importantly, most often deserted.
Walter would sometimes venture as close to the edge as his phobia would allow and look down at the city some twelve stories below. But more often he just sat near the access door and looked up into the sky. And there Walter dreamed his dreams of merciless revenge on those in the most popular cliques who wasted only enough time noticing Walter and his friends when they needed to have cheap laugh. Walter dreams of dancing high in the sky...high above the petty, loud, foolish world...and leaving his cares as far behind as the wind the sky would allow.
On the day in question Walter was ten years old. He was up on the roof alone. His mother was at work and Walter had to taste for the company of anyone else so he had taken his diary up to the roof. The wind that day was blustery but not so strong that it gave Walter any pause. Walter had looked around, making sure that was indeed alone, and then looked up at the gray but only vaguely foreboding clouds. And then, satisfied that it was not going to rain anytime soon, he sat down and began to write in his diary.
Exactly what Walter was writing was lost in the crush of uncanny events that happened not long after his arrival on the roof. While he was lying back for a moment gathering his next thought, an impish gust of wind stole around the roof and seized the page of his diary that he had just been writing on. The wind snatched the page and tore it free from the book. The page went tumbling gracelessly across the roof. Walter's eyes with wide with panic, the thought of someone else finding and reading his darkest, most private word filling him with an unspeakable dread, and he leapt up to recapture the page.
The wind kept the page dancing just inches from Walter's grasping fingers until, quite suddenly, it just stopped. The page hovered as thought waiting for Walter to reclaim it. With a relieved sigh, Walter lunged forth and retrieved his prize. And then he fell. In his haste to save the page Walter had forgotten the edge of the roof.
The world stopped. Walter's eyes grew wide as he looked down at the city rushing up towards him. His hand went slack and the errant diary page fluttered away never to be seen by him again. Walter's heart slammed against his chest as if it were trying to get out and escape the fate the rest of his body was about to meet. Walter closed his eyes tight and waited for the end. He thought about his mother, praying that she wouldn't be the one to find his crushed body on the sidewalk and hoping that she knew that he loved her more than anybody even if he hadn't actually told her so since he was four years old.
He thought about the dreams that would never have a chance to come true...dreams of love and fame and courage, dreams of revenge and friendship and rebellion and glory. And as he thought about dreams, regret and sadness filled every fiber of his being and, for an instant, he was glad that things would be over soon.
And then the wind stopped rushing around him. Everything was still and utterly peaceful. Walter was astonished. Was that it? No pain, no sudden wrenching free of life, just sudden stillness and peace? He was, fleetingly, strangely disappointed.
Slowly, Walter opened his eyes expecting to find some kind of Heaven...or hell. Instead he found the city. And, to his amazement, Walter found that he was five stories above the street and seemingly just floating in place. Perhaps this was the first stage of death, he thought. Be he felt alive. His heart was pounding and his eyes were stinging and his throat was filled with bile and fear. The silence lifted and the sounds of the wind and the cars in the distance came crashing in on him. The chatter of television sets and people taking, arguing, and laughing came from everywhere and nowhere. Walter realized that he was alive and, more incredible, he realized that he was floating...or flying...or something....high above the city street.
Walter glanced upwards, at the great expanse of the cloudy sky, and he thought about soaring up to dance with them. The idle thought became action as Walter felt himself moving upwards, retracing his fall from the roof with awkward grace. He was flying. Like Apollo. Like Superman.
And for a moment, he gloried in it, his hands reaching up to touch the sky, to feel the clouds and the wind. And then, that sweet moment was gone. Old fears asserted themselves as he neared the edge of the roof and, despite his dreams and desires, all he wanted to feel was something solid underneath his feet again.
His heart pounding harder than ever, Walter reached for the edge of the roof and he literally threw himself onto it. Walter landed hard but he welcomed the pain because it proved that he was still alive. He scrambled back away from the edge of the roof, his breath coming in thick, heavy sighs and he looked back in disbelief. It was all a dream, he told himself. Walter scooted backwards towards the roof access door, not willing to stand up yet, and found his diary. The page was still torn out and gone. It was more than just a dream, he realized, but, in that terrifying instant, Walter simply didn't care. He shoved the diary in his pocket and crawled to the door and slipped down the stairs.
Outside the wing sang to him but Walter would have none of it. He never went out on that roof again.
In the days and weeks that followed, Walter tried to forget that he could fly. But every once in a great while he would take a step and find himself lingering in mid-air. It would make him smile, fleetingly, but then he would willingly surrender to gravity's rule once more. He never told anyone about his wonderful, terrifying, mystifying secret. Not even his mother. He was a boy who could fly...but he was afraid to do so.
Walter stopped dreaming around that time. Perhaps dreams were lost to anyone who had a wonderful dream come true only to refuse to accept it. Walter resigned himself to life on the ground...life in a gray world far below the blue majesty of the heavens...and accepted that reaching for the stars was those with bolder hearts than his own.
Years passed and Walter Williams tried to forget that he could fly. And, for the most part, he did. Every once in a great while, Walter would remember and he would indulge himself in a short flight, but never flying very far and never flying very high. He wandered through his school years leaving no lingering impression on anyone. After college, Walter found a job, married a woman of whom he was quite fond, and settled into a life of peaceful conformity.
On some soft nights, Walter would sit alone in the backyard of his cozy suburban house thinking of nothing more than his cozy suburban life until the kiss of the breeze or the sparkle of an especially bright star would make him look upwards. And for a moment he would remember that he could fly and, for an instant, he would contemplate doing so. But it rarely came to anything. Walter would sigh, more with disappointment with himself than out of any real sadness, and leave thoughts of the sky for yet another day.
Besides his wife, of whom he remained quite fond from the day her met her until the day he died, the brightest part of Walter's life was his Jessica. Gray as he often felt, his daughter could make him smile anytime he thought of her. She was vibrant and full of life and she loved him without reservation even though he was neither of those things.
In the blissful years before Jessica discovered boys, Walter was the only man in her life and he treasured that time forever. One night when Jessica was six years old, she came out as he sat in the backyard and climbed unbidden onto his lap. She rested back against her father and looked up into the sky. They spoke of the nearness of the moon and the vast distances separating the stars. They spoke of winged horses and comic book heroes and other beings who could ride rainbows, for these things were of enormous interest to well read, imaginative little girls like Jessica. Jessica sighed and told her father that she wanted to dance in the sky. Like Pegasus. Like Supergirl. She wanted to dance so high that the world would look small and far, far away. Walter hugged his precious child gently but he said nothing.
Jessica chattered away until sleep took her. Walter looked down on his daughter, so bright and full of life and dreams and brave imagination, and then he looked up into the sky. He could fly and yet he didn't. Perhaps Jessica could fly, too...perhaps she would one day. Or maybe, she would discover that she could but decide not to out of fear...fear of falling, fear of flying too high, fear of embracing all the vibrant dreams in her heart because she was afraid that they would let her down in the end.
Walter felt even more gray and afraid. But that was nothing new. He stood up, cradling his sleeping child in his arms, and listened to the sky. The night breeze was calling him as was the moon, warm and golden against the cool blackness of the night. Holding tight to Jessica, took a step up and he began to fly.
He didn't fly high that night, his passenger was too precious and his fears were not yet in full retreat, but he flew above the rooftops...flew to the edge of the welcoming sky. And when Jessica stirred and asked him if he was really flying, Walter told her yes. And he was. He was flying. Like Apollo. Like Superman.
Jessica smiled and sighed contentedly and she slipped back into her dreams, secure in the arms of her father. Walter surrendered, somewhat reluctantly, to the tyranny of gravity once more, and he glided down gently to this yard. He carried his daughter into the house and into her bedroom basking briefly in the light of his wife's fond smile as they passed her. As he tucked her into her bed, Jessica roused just enough to ask if they could go flying again sometime. Walter kissed her forehead and promised her that they would indeed. Jessica smiled again and she went back to sleep.
Later, as he lay in bed alongside his wife, Walter listened to the song of the breeze dancing through the trees outside...he felt the call of the sky and the clouds and the golden moon. Walter Williams snuggled closer to his wife and he went to sleep dreaming of flying. Like Apollo. Like Superman.
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