Believe or Not, I'm Walking on Air

by Abigail Vint

I'm walking down the driveway of my parents' third home. It's in a fairly new subdivision--definitely one with lots of kids.

I'm walking past the flowered bush where all the bees gather. To my right is my parents' blue Nova--a boat on wheels.

I cross over the asphalt, onto the grass, and over to the blossoming crabapple tree.

I throw my hands up in the air and suddenly I'm floating.

I float all the way to my friend Virginia's house and we play Cabbage Patch people in her backyard, our figurines scattered in the grass.

I am 7 years old.

I am not amazed that I can fly, nor is Virginia. It just seems that this is something I can do. Some people can run fast at my age. Others can do handstands, hit a baseball, or dance like a princess. I can fly. I feel like a hero.

There is a feeling that comes over me that I am exactly like the character in the Greatest American Hero--just a younger version of him.

I'm not using my skills for good, only for transportation, but nobody seems to mind. There is an unspoken assumption that I am too young to be rescuing people but that once I get to be a bit older, I will be leaping tall buildings in a single bound. For now, I am simply able to get places faster, avoid traffic, relax my legs.

This goes on for weeks, this wonderful flying life of mine. Every morning I wake up, have breakfast and kiss my mother goodbye before heading out to the tree to go flying.

The only place I can take off is from the tree on the front lawn. It's not quite clear how it is I can get back to my house without the tree but somehow I am always home by nighttime.

One morning at breakfast, when my mother asks me what I'm going to do that day, I tell her quite calmly that I am going to go flying.

This day, I think I see her smirk when I mention it.

"Flying, eh?" she says in that motherly tone, when they're humouring you, not wanting to shatter your ideas or innocence too soon.

But today, I can hear in her voice that she really doesn't believe me. I'm quite taken aback. Before now, she has never been surprised to hear of my flying talent.

"Are you sure you weren't dreaming?"

"No mom," I say quite seriously, "I can fly."

I look at her with concern and determination. I can see the disbelief in her face.

"Look, I'll show you."

And so I make the journey down the laneway, as I have been doing every day, past the bee busy, past the boat car, onto the green grass, and I stop beside the flowery tree.

I look behind me and see my mother looking out the small kitchen window. She's got that dreamy, smiley-proud, anxious look on her face. Like she knows I will fail but is touched to see me trying.

I throw my hands up in the air. Nothing happens.

I do it again. Still, I'm right beside the tree.

I am stunned. Crushed. Shaking my head with shock.

My mom was right. I can't fly.

I'm not like Peter Pan. I am not the younger version of the Greatest American Hero.

It was all a dream. My dream state was so convincing that I woke up believing I was a flying kid. An anomaly. A hero.

Since that day, I have always hated waking up from dreams that felt so real. But at least I got to feel what it was like to fly.