Fly Away

Fly Away
Breathing rapidly and deeply, Katie dipped under the fence, hazarding a quick glance over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of her pursuer. Seeing nothing, she quickly rolled under a small brush and took a deep, calming breath of the warm Kansas air. Rising up to her knees, she poked her head above the bush, checking to make sure the monster was gone. Once the coast was clear, she set out across the hay field back to the safety of her house. Her blonde hair flowed behind her flower printed sun dress as she sprinted through the field. With a hop, skip and a leap, she was under the deck, safe from the imaginary monster hunting her.

These were the ways in which Katie was forced to spend her younger years, running around in her dad’s hay fields, imagining better lives or more exciting times. Her mom sat around inside the house all day, drinking malt whiskey and watching soap operas on TV. To avoid being yelled at for being a kid, Katie would head outside as soon as the summer sun melted away the morning cold. Once her mom forgot about her, she was free to do as she liked, but she mostly stayed outside, playing, running around, and imagining she was a princess, queen, or, her favorite, the city girl. She lived in a fantasy land until her daddy came home from the fields. Usually he was a big, happy man, but occasionally he became enraged. Katie would run up to her room and hide under the covers, hoping to wake up and realize everything would be fine in the morning.

This Tuesday was not any different than any other Tuesday, which typically featured a tea party followed shortly by a monster chase. Tired from running around the fields, Katie flopped down on her back, gazing up at the sun. Her bright blue eyes mirrored the sky, and the clouds floated softly by. Resting her head on her hands, she closed her eyes and basked in the rays of the sun. Slowly she began to rise, first seeing the top of the deck, then gliding over the roof, until she was gazing down at the top of the house. Taking her hands off of the back of her head, she began to flap her arms and fly away. Soaring faster than the clouds, she flew over the golden fields of Kansas and soared up to meet the sun. Feeling her face burning, she opened her eyes, looked around, and sighed. “Still in Kansas, still at the house,” she said sadly.
“How was your day pumpkin?” her daddy asked.
“It was real good,” she replied. “I found this monster in the tool shed, and then he chased me around the yard, and then I found a snake, and then I flew all the way up to outer space.”
“Wow, sounds like a big day. Gretchen, are you burning the chicken?” he yelled, his attitude instantly switching from that of a loving dad to an angry man.
“Oh kiss my ass Mark,” Katie’s mom yelled from the kitchen.
Katie jumped off of her dad’s lap and ran up the wooden stair case to her room. Swinging open the closet door, she grabbed her teddy bear and sat in the dark corner, clutching the bear and waiting.
“Are you drunk already?” her dad yelled. Katie could hear the voices coming up from the floor below.
“It’s none of your god damn business who’s drunk in this house,” her mom cried.
Katie heard pots and pans banging in the kitchen below, along with a few muffled cries before her mom’s footsteps clamored up the stairs. Slamming the door to her room, her mom began to cry. Katie stood up, walked out of the closet, and sat down in front of her window. Looking outside, she began to dream of flying, racing the sun to the horizon.
Two months later, Katie was in school. She loved school, and always got good grades. The city of Angelus was a very small one, and by the third grade, Katie knew all of the kids at school. She was about to run out with her friends to recess when her teacher asked about her bruises.
“I got them running away from the monsters,” Katie replied.
“Were you playing?” her teacher asked.
“Yes,” Katie answered, looking down at her feet.
“Well why don’t you run along and play okay?”
Katie loved walking home from her bus stop. She had to walk about a mile, but to a 10 year old, that provided an eternity of time to imagine. When she saw her house, she ran inside, threw her back pack in the closet, and hurried up to her room. She drew a picture of her family and taped it up on her wall with the rest of her art work. Smiling, she laid down on the bed. She jumped at the ring of the phone, and strained to listen to her mom’s voice.
“Yes, this is Gretchen,” she heard her mom say. “Why no, I have no idea where her bruises came from,” she said again. “Katie is an active kid, she probably got them running around in the fields.” After a short pause her mom hung up the phone and stomped up to Katie’s room.
“Katie?’ her mom asked.
“Yes?” Katie said.
“We need to talk.”
Katie started to cry. Once her mom finished beating her, Katie lifted her head off of her tear-dampened pillow and walked over to her window. She sat down again, as she had for the past two months, gazing out towards the setting sun. She opened up the window, closed her blue eyes, and spread her bruised arms. Flying away from the house, she flapped her arms and flew quickly over the Kansas Plains, beyond the Rocky Mountains, to Los Angeles, the city of all cities. She walked around, imagining herself shopping and eating at the restaurants. After catching a movie about a princess and her horse, Katie opened her eyes, brushed her teeth, and crawled into bed, her arms stiff not from the beating she received from her mom, but from her long flight to California.
Her parents called her in sick the next day, although she felt fine. Not knowing any better, she assumed this was how all of the kids at school were treated. Her mom, seeming to forget that the incident had even occurred, sat in her usual spot on the couch, drinking her same old bottle of whiskey. Katie went outside, but not to play like usual. She began to walk, and continued to walk, through corn fields, across dirt roads, until at last she was too tired to walk on. She stopped in the middle of a corn field, laid down, and looked at the sun. Her arms, covered in bruises, ached so badly that she couldn’t even use them for a pillow to rest her sleepy head upon.
Dreaming once more of flight, she flew up into the sky. Flying higher and higher, she saw a flock of geese. Stopping only for a short hello, she flew past them, continuing up and up until she began to feel a warm embrace. Maintaining her course, she persisted upwards, falling more and more into the embrace. The dark space around her became bright, like the light at the end of a long tunnel. No longer flying, she felt gravitated by the light and continued upwards until she fell into the loving embrace of an old man. Hugging her tightly, he said, “Welcome home Katie.”
The farmers who found her body two weeks later didn’t know what to do at first. They called the police, who identified her as the missing girl reported two weeks earlier. When the police investigated her house, they found all of her pictures, taped on the wall by the window Katie was so fond of looking out. The pictures, drawn over the course of two years, depicted the abuse she suffered. The parents were immediately arrested, tried and convicted of multiple counts of child abuse as well as one count of pre-meditated murder. The beating she received at the hands of her mother severely damaged her internal organs, and the flight she took from the corn field would be her last.
Looking fondly down at her body from the altitude of the clouds, Katie sighed and smiled, finally released from the hell she had experienced. Free of her shackles, the weight of the world off of her shoulders, she flew away.