There were whispered stories, stories we weren’t supposed to know. The adults told stories that contained horrific images of decaying cities where greed and laziness featured heavily. But the stories my friends whispered were of dancing that lasted for days and machines that carried you through the skies.
To soar above the clouds—it seemed a dream made-up by my year-mates to tease me. We were trapped on this island, our ancestors having destroyed all their landing craft in an effort to start our society afresh, without the failings of the ancient Romans and Americans.They say machines make you weak, prideful, so we toil by hand.
But to be able to fly.
I noticed as I strung the laundry to dry that the water-weighted fabric caught at the wind, straining against the line. I pulled a sheet tight, feeling the resistance pull me forward; I let it go and it whipped away, once more at the mercy of the breeze. After a week of careful planning, I went to the laundry and took some scraps and stitched them together as the foot pedal I rigged (not really a machine, I told myself) churned the butter. I took dowels meant for beans to construct a frame, something to hold the bit of cloth tight against the wind, just like the sheet on the line. The last piece I acquired was a ball of twine from the dairy, so that it would not go soaring away from me.
I went to the beach during afternoon rest and waited for a breeze to catch the patchwork, but it stayed rooted in the sand. I tried throwing it into the wind, only to have the wind throw it back in my face. I hadn’t cried since I was six, but I wanted to now. This should work, should fly. But the bell tolled the end of rest. If I didn’t run, I would be late, and someone would ask where I’d been.
So I ran.
And it flew.
Straight up into the air, soaring against the clouds. I laughed, crying as I watched it sway and dip. I tugged the string and watched it respond, zigging across the sky. I didn’t realize how long I stared until a brother came to find me. He cried out and ran towards me as I hastily reeled in my flying cloth.
“Give it to me!”
I hid it behind me, but he was older and bigger and in a blink I was on the sand and the cloth was in his hands. He threw it in the air but it fell, slamming into the sand. “Make it fly,” He hauled me up. “How did you make it fly?” He shook me so hard I couldn’t remember what I’d done, and I just shook my head, mute.
He growled and threw it in the air again, and the wind threw it back at him, hard.
“Damnit! You must have bewitched it! You’re using science, aren’t you?” His face contorted in disgust at the thought of the old contaminant, the brain poison that killed whole societies. “Show me how to make it fly for me, or I’m turning you in.” I couldn’t stop crying and he struck me with the wood and cloth, sending me back into the sand, splitting my scalp and breaking its frame. “Heretic! Throwback!” He threw down the ruined fabric and ran back to the village, screaming accusations. I pulled myself across the sand, dashing blood from my eyes, and started piecing the frame back
together.
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