#learninghowtofly

Here's an excerpt from chapter 1 of Learning How to Fly, My super hero novel. I’ve got to go to flying lessons. I have an image to uphold as a superhero, a responsibility I take seriously and not always being able to fly, well it’s a problem for the SHB. They’ve told me that if I don’t get my act together with the flying they might have to kick me off my team, maybe put me in the weather bureau or something.I step outside. It’s a cool day out. The sky is a pale blue with wispy clouds floating idly by, a promise of peace, but when is there ever peace? 

I have my costume on. The costume is a purple elasticloth form suit and a yellow cape with two S’s on it. Elasticloth is a substance made of plastic that is treated with special chemicals that make it very malleable. The costume fits the hero, showing off his or her physique to the smallest detail for the admiring public, but also acts as body armor against any bullets or power blasts.

I’m about to fly. I start running down my driveway, imagining that I’m a bird about to take off. My legs are pumping hard, my arms are outstretched so that I can fly. One, two, three, here I go. I feel a bit of lightness. Oh, yes I’m taking off this time. I flap my arms and yeah I know it’s ridiculous but that’s how I imagine flying and Dr. Mazdar, my Psychologist, she says that creative visualization is the key to flying. I have to be up there.

I’m up in the air now, slowly wheeling upward towards the sky. A lazy flap of my hands and the wind feels so fresh, so cold, and yet the air is so thick, like swimming through the ocean. The difference is that I can move faster in the air than I could swimming in the ocean. There’s no density around me like there would be with water.

I can do this. I can fly today. I test the wind, feeling the streams of air. Air has currents that help a bird fly and right now I’m a bird. Oh my superpowers, what are they?  You’ll just have to pay close attention, but you already know I can fly, if not all the time.

Okay so I’m picking up the air currents getting ready to go here. Ahh, perfect this current is going over to the SHB’s Flying School, for flying impaired heroes. I sniff the air, a bit of ozone, some smog, the perils of living in a city. I gather speed, moving in the air with a breaststroke. Each stroke is all that matters in my mind. Take it one at a time, nice and slow. 

 ***********

I am a bird, flapping my wings. I feel incredibly light. The sky is blue, so blue that it becomes purple and I’m swimming in this purple. There’s not a cloud in sight. I feel a euphoric high at the crown of my head as my endorphins begin to pump. The high can be described as the color of the sun, a mixture of yellow and orange that pierces me and raises my energy so that I can push off the ground and fly. Flying is a meditative experience and my spirit as a bird I visualize myself as picking me up and letting me fly away from the ground and every thing that could me down. I am flying and I feel free.

 *********** 

“Hey Nelson, that’s you up there?  Hey man, you’re flying!”

My annoying human neighbor is talking to me. I have to focus my mind here, not waste time on this guy. I can see him looking up at me, an expressions of awe and envy warring across his face. He’s tall, with curly brown hair and brown eyes, and dressed in a black suit, white shirt, blue tie, ready to begin his day in corporate world. 

“Uhm, hey I am flying and I really can’t talk. I have to go save the world and all the other stuff we superheroes do.”

“Oh, okay man. Sorry about that!”  

I breathe a sigh of relief. That idiot is quiet and I’m still up in the air. It’s time to slip into the stream fully and kick this flying to a decent speed. I put my arms against my body and my legs are straight. I’m horizontal to the ground. A little shadow floats down there showing where I am. But it’s not really me. Suddenly I’m a streak of cloud, rocketing it toward the building, no longer a bird, no longer a plane, no I’m a cloud, a fast moving cloud on a slipstream. Guess you know where I get my name. The bureau tells me that I won’t be able to keep that name if I can’t fly. As if they have the right to take away the name I came up with.