Yesterday and Today

Word count: 529

Yesterday was horrible, awful, and terrible. Today is different.

Yesterday my father left my mother. He left like a hurricane, destroying everything in the vicinity from furniture to my mother’s fragile soul. He left with another, younger, woman.

Today is different. Today I saw a man fly.

Yesterday I was broken and shattered by my father leaving. I cried for hours with my mother. I held her as she shook. I comforted her when I wanted to be comforted myself. I hated my father for what he had done to us. I hated the world for no other reason than that I could.

Today is different. Today I saw a man fly.

I remember flying like a feeling from my dreams. It is a soft sort of memory, always right there at the back of my mind, reminding me that one day I may fly. I may reach out and brush the clouds. It is always there, a memory from my dreams and today I saw someone who must have that same memory.

Today I snuck out of the house before my mother woke up so I could wander aimlessly around the city and hate it all. I hated it for functioning and moving along as though two lives were not utterly destroyed yesterday, as if two people who would never be the same didn’t really matter at all.

Maybe we didn’t matter at all. That thought chilled me.

I don’t know what possessed me to look up. No one else was looking up. But I looked up and I saw him. There was a man atop a building, standing with his arms outstretched, reaching for the clouds as if to say can I touch it… please, begging the winds to take him away. I watched him.

I watched him as the clouds watched him. I watched him as the world stood still. I watched him as the people below continued on their lives, oblivious to something extraordinary happening right above him. I watched him as he began to fall.

I watched him as he began to fly.

His body arched through the air beautifully as he flew and then people began to look. They watched him fly. They screamed and I could not understand why. It was such a beautiful thing and they screamed with horror. Mother’s covered their children’s eyes as he reached the ground.

I did not hear the sound as he made impact. I was too far away.

Suddenly there was a crowd surrounding him and I approached. I could hear their horrible whispers, saying horrible things. He jumped they said. He fell, they said. I knew better. I knew this man flew.

I went home, running all the way, to tell my mother what had happened. She held me in her arms and said it must have been horrible to see that. A mess of a body like so much bloody pancake batter, all spread on the sidewalk.

I told her no, it was beautiful. He touched the clouds and it was beautiful.

She held me and cried.

Yesterday I thought there was no hope. Today is different.

Today I saw a man fly.