Eden

There was a city in the north. It was not a large city, yet it was too large to be called a town. The people there were in their habits very neighbourly, much like the citizens of a town are; however, they also locked their doors at night and pulled their shutters tight, which are traits inherent to city dwellers. The city itself was much like other cities in design, with corporate complexes in the centre and suburbs spiralling out from it, the properties becoming more and more expensive the farther out they were. The apple pie families and the corporate hot-shots lived in the suburbs, and in the apartments forming a ring around the down-town area lived the post-grads and the single waitresses and the lonely men divorced thrice. Further in, past the red brick apartment buildings, were the artisan shops and the black box theatres and the sports stadiums. The largest stadium held a hockey rink which filled up every Thursday night, which was the night our two teams played.

Now, this city was quite unique, for it was located on an island out in the ocean. There was a bridge that connected its shores to the mainland, however the bridge was neither crossed on foot nor driven on. The people of the city had never had reason to leave, and no-one else in the world seemed to know the place existed. Over the years- decades or centuries, who could be sure?- the bridge had been repurposed as a sort of plaza, an area where citizens could gather and mingle. This bridge led North to South and South to North, with one side facing the East where the sun rises and one side facing the West where it sets. In the mornings, citizens would line up against the East railing and watch the sun rise. In the evenings, citizens would line up along the West railing and watch the sun set. Youths would meet at the bridge for dates, and weddings were sometimes held there as were parades and other celebratory events or gatherings. The people of the city were happy, and everything there was constant and familiar.

It happened on a Tuesday. No-one ever thinks about the Tuesdays. There are no poems about the grey skies that might-rain-but-might-not or about the gusty winds that blow your hair out of style which often accompany Tuesdays. There are no songs or stories about Tuesdays because no-one ever thinks about the Tuesdays. This Tuesday had been like that until the late afternoon or early evening, when the gusts finally managed to push the clouds West and leave clear skies and the promise of a beautiful sunset. Me, I hadn't been to the bridge in a few weeks. Grad school and work had been pushing my limits and I simply hadn't the time. But on that Tuesday I had finished my work, had just taken my exams, held a fresh thermos of hot cider in my hand, and wore a scarf wrapped around my neck to shield me from the chilling ocean breeze.

I walked to the bridge- most people walked to the bridge- and arrived about a half hour earlier than most people did. I had always liked to get there a bit prematurely; for though the sunsets were always so beautiful, I preferred the moments just before the sky exploded into countless new colours. I craved the anticipation, the weaving thoughts and fathoms of all the possibilities the atmosphere and universe could choose from to produce for us on that particular night. These miracles that were fundamentally the same though aesthetically vastly differing from the ones exhibited every other night that week, or month, or year. I still sit before my easel on certain mornings in the winter or spring and try to replicate from memory all those extraordinary works of art I witnessed all those years ago. Alas, I've never managed to lay even a stroke of paint on my canvas. I think that maybe some things are meant to happen only once and are to then exist solely in our memories and grasping dreams- things like sunsets over an endless, rolling, blue-green grave and women who sit on the railings of bridges and watch them.

She was sitting there on the railing that Tuesday, the first and last time in my life that I saw her. I remember watching her; her mousey brown hair, long and flowing, her ivory skin that seemed to glow where it wasn't covered by the simple white dress that I now drape over all my unfinished Angels- unfinished because not one wears a face, because I just can't get her right. I remember seeing her sitting there by herself, facing the wind, and thinking, 'I need to know this girl.' With that thought in mind, I approached her and leaned against the railing beside where she was perched, staring too out over the gentle oceans' roll. “Are you lonely,” I asked, looking over at her, “or just alone?”

“Neither tonight,” she replied, her voice high and soft and sweet, like the song of a lark. “Now, most nights- most nights I'm alone. But never lonely. Not tonight, though, there's something in the air.”

“And what would that be?”

“Wind.” She glanced down, her swirling powder blue eyes meeting my brown ones for the briefest of moments before they returned to the sky. “Life. Possibility.”

I found myself nodding along with her words, agreeing and deciding them true. “My name's Daniel,” I said, because I wanted to know hers.

“I'm Eve,” she told the sky, then decided to again grace me with her gaze. It pierced into me, dug deep and shone light upon the darkest corners of my mind. “Are you alone tonight, Daniel, or just lonely?”

I chuckled at the question returned-and-turned-around. “Neither, I think. Something too alive in the wind.” She smiled. Her teeth were straight and white, and they glowed just as her skin did.

She was silent for a moment, then spoke again to a sky that must of held some secret I could not see, “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

I was admittedly taken aback by her request, but I didn't see any reason to deny her. Besides, I was curious as to what exactly it was she wished to ask. “Uh, no, go ahead.”

“Do you believe in God?”

It was either fate or coincidence- though I believe in neither- that the question she asked me was one I had been asking myself rather frequently those days, for if I hadn't then I may not have answered so readily or honestly. “I think so,” I told the sea, “I know I believe in a god, I'm just not sure which one.”

“Why do you think God made us without wings?”

“Wings?” I asked, confused.

“Yes, wings. Why do you think we don't have them?”

“I don't know,” I had said with a shrug, “I've never really thought about it.”

She stared at the sun as it sank lazily towards the horizon, her face illuminated by its light. “Well, I have. You know what I think?”

It took a few seconds of waiting for me to realise she wanted a response. “What do you think?”

“I think that we do have wings. I think that they're living just there on our backs, and that that's why we can't see them. I think that the only reason we can't fly is that no-one has ever tried.”

I can still remember how inspired she sounded when she said those words, how enlightened, but I was a fool then and I only laughed. “Or because it's impossible.”

She looked back towards me, her expression serious. “Have you ever tried, Daniel? To fly?”

“Well... no.”

“Then how do you know it's impossible?”

“Because it just is. Birds fly, bugs fly. People don't.”

She sighed and returned her attention to the sun. “Well, I disagree.”

As the sun drew closer to the water the bridge became more crowded with people. They were talking and laughing as they lined up against the railing to secure themselves a prime spot to watch the day end. They came with their families, with their friends, with their co-workers or loved ones. They came in streams and in waves and in stones skipping over calm waters. They came on that Tuesday, as they so often did, to watch the world fall into darkness and to be amazed by everything it was capable of. To marvel at the sites and wonder at the ones they hadn't yet seen or never would. I stood beside a girl I didn't even know, a girl named Eve who believed humans had wings and knew in her heart that she could fly. And me? I felt like no-one else on that bridge mattered because I was too busy wondering what was at its end, wondering what it led to and realising that I had no idea. I had never, not once in my life, left the island-city I was born on. I thought deeply on this for many minutes, looking over the sea that surrounded Eden and searching for what may lay beyond it, and I wondered- had anyone?

“Daniel,” came a wistful interruption of the thoughts she had awoken in me, “sometimes I'll be walking down the pavement towards anywhere, and then the wind will blow and hit my back in this way. Brush across my shoulder-blades, swirl under my arms, wrap around my hips and slip under my feet. And my whole body starts to buzz and lighten, and each step I take is a little slower, a little softer than the last. And I get this feeling just beneath my skin, and I know. I know that if I were to jump at just the right second and unfurl my wings, then the wind would lift me up and take me away from here. But I can never jump high enough, or long enough, or light enough to be swept up and out and away. Then the angle of the wind changes, or it slows or it stops, and the feeling leaves me- leaves me wanting and itching to soar. I know it, Daniel, I know in the depths of my soul that if I could just get it right then I would finally fly. If I just jump high enough...”

The sky and sun had her attention as she said these things, spoke dreamily to them, her features so soft and genuine and hopeful in every way that even I in my youth couldn't think her strange or insane. I saw her only as more divine than the rest of us, holding some element of revelation and foresight that we all lacked. I watched as she stood, as the heels of her feet balance tentatively on the thin bar below them and her hands clutched tightly the railing I stood on the other side of. Her face was turned up, a paragon of perfection as the wind blew against her back and threw those long brown locks against such flawless cheeks. The dress blew out and whipped about her knees as she breathed deeply then sighed. “Do you feel it Daniel, swirling around us? Listen. Listen to it sing.”

'What a beautiful song,' I found myself thinking as I opened my ears to the humming and whistling of the dancing air that sung on some higher level than our own voices could carry. “I hear it,” I told her in a breath, thinking how very ugly my own words sounded next to hers and the winds'.

“Doesn't it sound so alive?” She spoke with, around, and between the wind. She spoke as a prophetess and a philosopher and a part of something more. “Daniel,” she said, meeting my eyes once more. I thought to myself that that was what it must feel like to be struck by lighting. “Daniel, today is the day I will fly. I will chase the sun and ride the wind across the waters and away from it all. Will you come with me Daniel? Will you fly away with me?”

My brain processed slow and heavy as she spoke, her words coming in as music rather than language and I rushed to translate them as I stared into her eyes. I didn't know what she meant, didn't know what she was asking of me, but I wanted to say yes. “I...” But that was all that came from my lips, the other words lost somewhere along the way. I searched frantically for them, but they were no-where to be found.

She smiled gently at me, lips closed and reassuring. “It's all right Daniel, I won't be lonely up there. Maybe some day we'll see each other again. Will you remember me?” I felt my head nodding without my command. Her eyes betrayed desperation, and her words shared a plea. “Promise.”

“I promise.”

Then she smiled again: relieved, happy, content. “Goodbye, Daniel.” She turned back to the sun just as it made its first contact with the horizon and sent tendrils of orange out among us, and she let go of the railing.

I think I screamed her name, but I am not sure. I remember only the gasps and shouts of the people around me as they all pressed against the railing and looked down, just as I did. We watched her fall, arms straight out and back curved as she drifted down towards the waves, like an arrow and a feather at once. I watched her hair and dress tangle together behind her, and I swear to this day I heard laughter from below me. My body willed me to look away, but I could not tear my eyes from her falling form as the waters approached her. And I'm glad I didn't turn, because that was when it happened. She met the ocean and its waters crested around her body, reaching out, but they did not consume her. At the very last second I saw a glint on her back akin to the reflection of a light off glass and she swooped up and away from those waters. I heard more screams and gasps of horror around me, but I didn't pay them any mind for they weren't relevant. I watched her wide-eyed and awed as she flew up and away, not even a drop of salty sea on the hem of her dress. And I could see them. I could see her wings, almost translucent but so definitely there as they rolled and flapped and carried her away. She flew towards the sun, waves of pink streaming from her hands and feet, her ivory skin engulfed in purples and blues that had never existed before that night. I watched her fly away, a smile gracing my lips, and my only thoughts were, 'She did it. She made it. She flew.'

As so many reckless, lightless people around me stared down at a lifeless sea, I watched an Angel chase the sun.

Author's Note

What are your thoughts concerning this story? How did it make you feel? What did it make you think about or consider? What did it remind you of? Do you have any questions or theories? I do not do a lot of short story writing, so anything and everything (especially harsh criticism) would be more than welcome.

Reviews

[Romalina]

I really liked your language :) Its beautifully written :)

[Peyton Avrett]

I like the script and the way you carried out the story.