Swan Song

I never understood the neighbor boy. I was “warned” that he was unusually odd. He seemed nice, though. He brought me sweets when he made too many for himself. He was quiet. He never disturbed the peaceful setting of the top floor. He kept to himself, but he was friendly. A small, but genuine smile always was worn upon his face. He greeted me every time we walked near each other. He held doors open for me. He helped me carry my groceries from my car to my counter. He was polite and well mannered whenever I invited him over for a simple dinner with a platonic setting.

I didn’t know him well, but I’d be lying I wasn’t dumbfounded and actually quite stricken with grief when I found him, well, what he left behind. He never locked the door to his apartment. He didn’t find a purpose of trying to keep anyone out. No one could get past all the security anyway. And who’d rob the very top floor, anyway? That was his reasoning, at least. Turns out he had a rather large set of ideas similar to the logic he always employed with me. I invited myself in when I didn’t hear any response to my knocking. His TV and DVD/VCR player was on, but there wasn’t anything in, just the white noise and a note weighed down by a remote; it read, “Go plug in the camera.”

I spotted it on a bookshelf near his open balcony window. I grabbed it, walked around a few random pigeon feathers, set the thing up, and then sat down on the little footstool he placed several feet back.

The first few scenes were poorly edited and bad attempts at deleted thoughts, ranging from “I don’t sleep anymore because sleep is the cousin of death” to “these false prophets, they act like they’re messiahs.”

I skipped the rather deranged thoughts. The thoughts so much weren’t too odd for him, but just the way it was cut up, the way the background looked, the way the clips skipped to the next.

But then a bright picture lit up the screen. He was setting up his camera on top of his TV for the best shot. He drew in a deep breath, looked straight into the camera, then said, “This apartment has turned into a wasteland. The place before this was worse though. Chores, pills, chores, food, pills, chores… The paperwork said ‘guest,’ but they called us ‘residents.’ I guess because they put manners on a pedestal, and it’s rude to dictate the lives of guests. It’s rude to slowly kill guests. Residents. That’s different. Residents want to be there and whatever comes with it all.”

He took a minute to be bitter and looked away from the camera. “But I was tired of feeling dead. The nurses said I was fine, that I looked plenty alive. But my soul was rotting away. The nurses said a lot of things about the way I was feeling. But I knew the right thing to do.” He nodded and licked his lips, “Keep quiet; they think you get better. Then they release you.” He sighed and stared back into the camera, “But being a part of the outside world makes you feel dead, too, though.”

“They told me that I could never rise to meet the best. That there was no best in me anyway. That I’d never be able to fly. Well they’re wrong. I’ve been putting a lot of thought into this, a lot of thought. A lot of planning. A lot of what-ifs thought up and dealt with. I’ve finally made it, and I’m going to fly. I’m going to join the other free birds at the top.”

He smirked, “I’m showing them all today.”

He smacked his lips, “The nurses that put me down.”

He nodded confidently, “The nurses that kept me down.”

He bit down on his bottom lip and furrowed his brow, “The nurses that gave me my downers.”

He drew in a deep, upset breath. “The quack that told my father that I will never live in reality.” He randomly laughed out loud and bent forward a bit, “Where the hell have I been all these years then? If I lived in fantasy I’d have been the inspiration to Inception, but I didn’t see them giving me any credit, therefore I cannot be living in fantasy.” He wagged his right index finger, :If anything, I live with hope. I live with the desire to make my next experience with living much better than the last. I get inspiration from my dreams, and I live to make them come true.”

He smirked again, his brown eyes open wide, “And today, oh-ho, today, I will fly to the top.” He ran his hands through his thick, brown hair. “I don’t need downers to calm me down.”

He whipped the little bit of sweat off of his pale, riddiculously symmetrical face. “I don’t need uppers to get me out of bed.” He started to yell, “I don’t need some shmuck with a pipe filled with strawberry tobacco to lean against the back of his large, wheeled, leather chair and tell me to get my head out of the clouds. That my feet’ll never take me anywhere than the basics of the ground anyway! That I’m setting myself up for disappointment!”

He sighed and sat down on his coffee table for a second, “Perhaps I was. But not today. No,” he smiled happily, “today I’m setting myself up for absolute success. Today, oh, today, will mark papers everywhere. From the smallest of notes on a student’s margins to the news station of the nation. Everyone’ll know who I am. Everyone’ll know that I am the one who proved these “professionals” wrong. That I am the one who dared to dream. Who dared to try. Who dared to take the risk. Who earned the right to fly high with the free birds.

“I must confess that I’ve lost some friends on the way to this taste of divinity. They couldn’t handle my ideas. My drive. The fact that I refused to not get to this point. But that’s fine. If they couldn’t handle me, that’s fine. I’ll find better friends at the top. I’ll find friends who understand that I’m not one to live in fantasy.” He started to walk back and forth in a straight line, wagging his index fingers and clenching his fists, “That I understand reality perfectly. That I’m a budding genius. That I deserve the fine things that I’m about to earn. That I deserve the company of others just as great as me. That I need to be surrounded by those better than me. That I’ve earned my way to the top.”

He was quiet for a long minute; I thought of the wonderful opportunities he’s had with a successful law firm down town, but then he sighed and looked straight into the camera, “Except you, Myra.”

I’ve been shocked and worried throughout the tape, but a touched smile found its way onto my face.

He smiled back at me, “You’ve been very kind to me. Supporting my ideas, arguing my controversial points. You’ve been honest with me and you’ve treated me with kindness. And I will forever be grateful for that.”

I smiled.

“But enough talk.” He sighed and stretched, “It’s time to open up the window to the rest of my life.” He picked up the camera and walked over to the large window that leads to his balcony. He opened it and sighed happily. “I suspect that you, Myra, are watching this. And I want you to know that this breeze feels amazing.” He sat down the camera on a bookshelf near by. He left the screen for a few minutes before returning with an insane looking, homemade set of wings. They looked dirty, clumsily put together, and just plain odd.

He put them on.

I shot up.

He shouted with pure glee as he ran full speed out the window, jumped onto the railing, off of the railing, and flapping his arms as if they were once wings.

I was frozen in time. Is this real? Or is this an elaborate joke? Weren’t there sirens just a few minutes ago? Where is he? I jumped up, pushed through my panic attack, and walked over to the balcony. Shoe prints were on it; I placed my hands away from them, bent forward a bit, and saw a terrible, splattered scene at the bottom. I looked away in an attempt to not immediately puke, but only the shock of what I saw next stopped my stomach contents from traveling.

He made it a bit. And not to a near by, smaller building. Higher above. He made it seven feet up to the tip of the building. One of his wings was speared on the golden pole that sticks out diagonally from the top of the building, the pole that our building hangs the American Flag from.

I was no longer distraught or in an internal panic.

He lived his dream.

He made it to the top.