I Can Fly

I loved the loft of our barn. The high ceiling had interlacing exposed timbers and looked like two big hands clasped together. Square hay bales, smelling sweet, sunny, and tangy clover, stacked the sides of the loft like piles of protection for my brother and me, our moat separating us from what was beyond.

Then there was the braided rope, as thick as my thigh, dangling in the middle.

One afternoon, my brother grabbed the rope, slung it over his shoulder, and dragged it up a heap of bales, like a mountain climber with his gear; then let it go. It swung hard and fast, like a thirty-foot pendulum, and the awe of it alone could have knocked me over.

“Cool!” Jay belted as he slid down the bales. He grabbed the rope again and said, “I’m going to ride it.”

“Um, what?!” I asked for clarification even though I knew his mind was made up. Even still, I followed with my older-sister scolding, “You can’t! You’ll fall and crack your head.”

“It’s not that far to the ground,” he snickered with his don’t-worry-about-it attitude. He’d get an idea and go with it no matter the potential consequences.

After my feeble attempt to dissuade him, he commanded, “I’m going,” and smirked the biggest smirk.

He scrambled up and overlooked the mow as if prince of the garret realm, which somehow let my shoulders fall a little.

He squeezed one arm among the wall rafters, secured himself onto the frayed cord with the other, and wild-eyed, yelped, “Here I go!”

I flinched when he let loose, but then he squealed, “Woohoo!”

I thought the heck with it and jumped up and down, hooting along with him. He went again and again, each time higher, continually asking me if I wanted to go.

And I did; it shook through me, a hunger to risk something, take a plunge. But each time he asked, I said “I can’t.”

Finally, my brother said, “Don’t be a chicken liver,” and I thought, What am I afraid of?

My feet sprang before I realized what I was up to.

If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this right.

Like a lumberjack-ess scaling a colossal tree, I ascended the bales.

“Bring me the rope,” I said, with a sure voice despite the shaking in my skin.

I balanced; one arm circled a two-by-four while the other clasped the heavy rope.

I told myself, I can’t do this. Then, I CAN do this.

My brother went down and shouted at me to go.

And I did. Hands and feet free of the wood, my fingers held firmly, my behind found a knot.

I soared, sailed, my mind free of everything but the breeze through my hair, the speed in the air.