Once upon a time, there was a little girl who dreamed of flying. She imagined what the world would look like from above. Drawings of playgrounds sitting atop clouds littered her notebook, and in her mind, she watched her feet dangle from swings 10,000 feet in the sky. Due to excessive daydreaming, she received mediocre scores on standardized tests.
At home, she built forts in her backyard, climbed trees, played pretend, and made fairy houses out of mulch and weeds. She patrolled the land for signs of fairies, and if even a blade of grass was disturbed in one of her mansions, she declared irrevocable proof of miniature life.
She also liked to ride her bike. It was a hand-me-down from her older sister. The pink paint had worn off in some parts, and the tattered rubber attached to the handlebars had been removed upon irritation to her palms. She used this bike to conduct fact finding missions and to feel the wind in her hair.
School was especially boring that week. She traveled to the playground in the sky and planned a party for the fairies. She imagined flying around the forest as if she were one of them. After a trip to McDonalds with her mother for dinner, she set out to do the impossible: fly. She was of the mentality that she could do anything, be anyone, and see what nobody else could.
There was a slight drop-off in her backyard leading to a patch of woods. She cleared the area of all fallen branches and debris, just in case anything were to go awry. She started from 20 feet away and rode off the 5ft cliff. For that split second, she felt like she was flying. The sky was pink and blue, her favorite combination. The wind tugged at the tangles in her dark brown hair, which instead of combing through, she would cut right off. The air felt colder from above.
She hit the ground quickly, her body tilting over the handlebars and landing with one of them lodged in her stomach. It wasn’t her first instinct to cry. In fact, this was the only thing she’d ever encountered that she met with disbelief. She cried for help, nonetheless.
Firefighters arrived and sawed off the rest of the bike. She stared directly into the sky as the sound of metal screeching drowned out everyone's frantic yet encouraging words. She was rushed to the ambulance with the handlebar still intact. Her mother hysterically asked questions and cried and prayed, even though she did not believe in God. The little girl closed her eyes. She knew she would be okay.
In the waiting room, her mother spoke with a mom whose daughter got a fish hook stuck in her eye. They wondered how such terrible and unlikely things could happen. Guilt ate away at them for their lack of parental supervision, and they swore to never let their daughters out of sight again.
The girls were operated on as their mothers prayed in silence.
The handlebar missed all of her vital organs by mere millimeters, the doctor said. "An angel must have been with us," said her mother. She made a speedy recovery, along with the other little girl. She thought the fairies must have been secretly watching over them under the fluorescent lights. The nurses gifted her a pink stuffed bunny that she then named Bunny, who she would speak to like a friend, even into adulthood. Bunny held wisdom, she was sure.
When she grew up, she'd often feel the scar on her stomach and be reminded of her lust for life-- or, comparably, her lust for make-believe. She would look for that feeling in anything and anyone, trying to find something that may or may not exist. She could maybe find it in an empty grass field, a piggyback ride, a heart-shaped cake, a quiet boy, or a lingering wide-eyed stare. She’d try and try and try to fill the pit in her stomach with butterflies. Sometimes it worked and they stayed; other times, they scattered. Yet her ancient beliefs were engraved in her, and even after most imagination had been lost, she never strayed far from that hope. She knew a secret that nobody else did.
I wish I could know it, too.
