One summer day, a boy falls asleep and dreams of himself as Icarus. With wings on his back and Apollo's damning touch, will new endings be forged or tragedies continue?
I sat in the library, in one of the corner benches, besides the window. It was a hot, lethargic day and the English assignment before me the last thing on my mind. The air conditioner had long since retired and hadn't been replaced. The measly excuse of a fan did nothing of the sweat slowly dripping down my forehead and around the collar of my stupid uniform.
Most students excel at the common art of procrastination and to practice mine to avoid completing my homework, I had chosen to read the book lying in front of me, left by its previous inhabitant. It was a humble and worn Collection of Greek Myths. Upon scanning the index I found a myth about which I had read and admired a great many poems. I decided to go ahead with it. I turned to page 78, flipping the yellowing pages and read The Myth of Icarus.
However staying awake late at the previous night and the humid heat, soon pulled me into an uncomfortable sleep.
Something did not seem right for my legs were suspended mid air and i found straps on my arms. I looked down and....oh! A sea glittered below me. I turned around and found wings on my back. Something told me I should flap my arms and to keep flying. I flapped higher and I rose higher. But it was only when I found another man, a little ahead flying with wings like mine, I realised on a hunch, where I was. Am I Icarus?
The wings needed fewer flaps than I assumed and the land seemed far away. I thought about where I last was. I must have fallen asleep in the library- yes that's where I was. Am I lucid dreaming? Seems so. I've never had any lucid dreams, though I've read a lot about them. Can I do a backflip without the measley cloth betraying me?
I shouldn't try. What if I fall? Fall! Oh my god, Icarus falls! What should I do!? In haste I turned my head upwards and the glare of the sun blinded me. I realised how irritating it was, droplets of sweat kept forming and the blaze of the sun was hotter than my coffee. And my hand, oh, it burned.....But why? Why my hand, only my palm and fingers?
Something amber gold moved in the air it was a golden hand holding mine, and a boy as concrete as smoke, I found, was beckoning me higher.
There was a smile there, so fleeting. but mine wasn't. I flapped harder and rose, quiet aware of his scorching hold.
I wanted to fly higher, but I stopped.
Because this time icarus won't fall. He'll reach safetly to land. I ignored the pull of the golden hand and kept flying. As I flew, I thought about flying too close to the sun, the moral of this story.
But i never heeded it because I knew I will never be so over confident, never. For someone forever anxious and self doubting, over confidence is what I imagine to be my greatest sin for I wouldn't know how to deal with it.
It's those short poems and sentences like honeyed calligraphy singing icarus' praise for knowing what it is-- to burn, to love, to know the ironical joy of falling-- that I love to read. But Of course I don't believe in it. It does no good to fall in real life. that's why there are poems about it. Poems are for the unattainable and the unbearable.
But I thought, this is not real life, is it? I can taste that tasty poison of flying and falling without actually suffering the consequences, can't I?
And there this beautiful boy, unawares uncaring, turning my hand red, quiet like my face. What do I have to lose? I cannot imagine falling in real life. Even if I don't die from impact, I shall drown in shame.
I flap my hands harder and harder and harder. My hands have this burning ache, I feel some of the wax running down my back, a few feathers twirl about in the air and soon unseen, consumed by the sea.
Yet I keep rising higher and higher. Daedalus is soo below me. "You're gonna lose, Daedalus! " I scream. He cannot hear me. I laugh.
Even up this high the only wind is from my wings. It was hot but I don't mind it. I hate sweat, but I don't mind it. I'm not a fan of summers, but today, I don't mind it.
I don't quiet like the sun, I never wrote for it any poems, but today, I don't dislike it. Not when this golden boy of summer haze holds my hand and mine alone.
Not when he laughs silently yet with enough sound and he dances and flies around me and looks at me as if he is the earth and I'm the sun.
Perhaps today I can even write a poem on him suns caress, scalding sweet...but I cannot finish it. For I am busy cackling like a manic out of pure unrestrained joy, tears streaming down my hot cheeks.
It's fun when you know you only flew to fall.
I twisted and rolled upwards-- went right atop Apollo's head. And when i was higher, I flashed him a cheeky grin.
He dissipated and amber glitter swirled around me-- it subtly brushed my arms, my neck, my jaw and it all swirled and rose and there formed Apollo right on top of me.
You..I realised it was time to up my game and I gave my wings a great hard flap, and I rose and bent. I was half way trough my backflip, that tiny ship with those white sales the last thing I saw, when I realised all the wax had melted, all my feathers had fallen.
I fell, right through Apollo whose face I couldn't make out. I was helpless and couldn't even move my limbs. I felts a brush of heat on my finger tips and I think it was a golden hand. Laughter bubbled out, and I couldn't stop then, I kept laughing. " You cannot catch me you dolt!"
It was like my heart had lodged itself in my throat and my chest was empty and bile had filled up instead.
But I was surprised to find my self still smiling.
I don't know if I made a great splash when I fell. My ears had been roaring for quite a while?
Did the men from that ship which I saw, did they come to help? What about the people from the port, so vibrant, will my fall be another anecdote to gossip back home? Daedalus and Icarus I'm really sorry-- I wished you could have had a different ending this time.
It was from the thought of the pain that I woke up.
I woke up in the library, with my back aching and droll on my cheek and arms which I tried to discreetly wipe. The librarian stood in front of me.
"Ohhh, who would have thought you could fall asleep like that?" She said. "Come on, get up. It's time to go home."
I mumbled an apology and quickly packed my things, a bit embarrassed though her grin was not unkind.
I sat in my bus and thought for a long time on my way back, while the hot air from the window whipped on my face. I thought about the golden boy, did he grieve when I fell? Or did he just carry on? How many of his seconds were equivalent to a human's grief of suddenly losing a boy whom you had struck a cord with trying to do backflips in the air?
I thought sadly about Daedalus. How must he have felt to hear a great splash below and find his only son missing from the sky? To think you escaped one horror only to face another?
But then I chuckled. It's just a story. But I still cannot believe I flew. Even when I knew I'd fall. I took out my spare notebook and finally wrote my very first poem for the sun.
Sun's caress, scalding sweet
Amber gold, a dazzling dream
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