than just cardboard?
That day, while she was playing with her Barbie on the table (as a girl should), her brother had been busily constructing it in the back alley with three of his friends. Using a two-by-four, the box from a newly purchased freezer procured from somewhere in the alleyway, and two rolls of black electrical tape, heâd fashioned an impressive wing, complete with two slots cut out for his hands to grip on to the two-by-four frame inside, for steering purposes. It took all four of them to manhandle it, first onto the high fence, then onto the roof of the garage itself. Before lifting the contraption onto his shoulders, her brother looked up to the sky professionally, searching for wind and pivoting in a full circle, akin to a weathervane. The air was still. A seagullâsix hundred miles from the nearest sea but only a mile from the local dumpâglided through the blue and screeched as if in response to so many eyes following it through the sky. Her brother, giving the conditions a serious sniffle, lifted the wing onto his back.
Denise remembers that in the days leading up to this, her brother had become fixated with the idea of air resistance, jumping off trash bins with a small piece of plywood in hand, off a ladder with a garbage bag, lugging their aluminum toboggan to a playground to hurl it from the top of the jungle gym. He had an easily engaged, though some would say obsessive, personality. A toy in a catalogue would suddenly catch his eye, jump out at him from one of the glossy pages, and inspire him to rip it out, Scotch-taping it to his bedroom door, and saving allowances, mowing lawns, shovelling walks, and collecting bottles from corner-store garbage cans until heâd saved enough money to buy it. Likewise, he seemed confident in his methods and preparation here, teetering on the apex of the roof with the long cardboard wing on his back, focusing on the edge that fell away. When he was ready, he sounded a barbaric yawp over the rooftop and broke into a sprint down the slope to the overhanging eaves. There was no hesitation.
Denise was standing on the lawn below, with the others, and had innocently envisioned him gliding around the neighbourhood for a while before landing, and, as such, had looked at his trajectory, the line he would be swooping in directly after takeoff. But right across from the garage was her fatherâs greenhouse, a recent addition to the shed, which had grown into something much larger than the shed itself, a framework of opaque plastic that was misted with transpiration, the odd droplet of water trickling down its sides like a shower stall. Her brother would crash into it.
She stepped forward as if to yell a warning, as if to implore him to abort mission before it was too late. But nothing came out. And realistically, nothing would have stopped him anyway. Heâd made up his mind. About what, Denise couldnât be sure. She suspected, thinking about it now as an adult, that it wasnât even about flying. It was about something else entirely. Maybe a test of convictionâwhere even the failure to take flight would carry with it, somehow, the taste of success; the flavour of something won, something magic, a precious metal, the acridity of brass in the blood that was about to run from his mouth.
He leapt. The cardboard folded up like an inverted umbrella, and he plummeted to the grass, legs collapsing on impact, his body crumpling forward and, with his hands still clinging to the two-by-four in the wing, onto his face. Pushing the flying machine off him, and already crying, he peered up at his shocked audience, his teeth coated red. The three boys whoâd helped him, swapped a stunned look, turned, and fled the scene. Denise wasnât much better in terms of assistance, only managing to stare down into his face, unable to move, playing with her hands, biting her lip.
Eventually their father came running, and her brother was soon whisked off to
That day, while she was playing with her Barbie on the table (as a girl should), her brother had been busily constructing it in the back alley with three of his friends. Using a two-by-four, the box from a newly purchased freezer procured from somewhere in the alleyway, and two rolls of black electrical tape, heâd fashioned an impressive wing, complete with two slots cut out for his hands to grip on to the two-by-four frame inside, for steering purposes. It took all four of them to manhandle it, first onto the high fence, then onto the roof of the garage itself. Before lifting the contraption onto his shoulders, her brother looked up to the sky professionally, searching for wind and pivoting in a full circle, akin to a weathervane. The air was still. A seagullâsix hundred miles from the nearest sea but only a mile from the local dumpâglided through the blue and screeched as if in response to so many eyes following it through the sky. Her brother, giving the conditions a serious sniffle, lifted the wing onto his back.
Denise remembers that in the days leading up to this, her brother had become fixated with the idea of air resistance, jumping off trash bins with a small piece of plywood in hand, off a ladder with a garbage bag, lugging their aluminum toboggan to a playground to hurl it from the top of the jungle gym. He had an easily engaged, though some would say obsessive, personality. A toy in a catalogue would suddenly catch his eye, jump out at him from one of the glossy pages, and inspire him to rip it out, Scotch-taping it to his bedroom door, and saving allowances, mowing lawns, shovelling walks, and collecting bottles from corner-store garbage cans until heâd saved enough money to buy it. Likewise, he seemed confident in his methods and preparation here, teetering on the apex of the roof with the long cardboard wing on his back, focusing on the edge that fell away. When he was ready, he sounded a barbaric yawp over the rooftop and broke into a sprint down the slope to the overhanging eaves. There was no hesitation.
Denise was standing on the lawn below, with the others, and had innocently envisioned him gliding around the neighbourhood for a while before landing, and, as such, had looked at his trajectory, the line he would be swooping in directly after takeoff. But right across from the garage was her fatherâs greenhouse, a recent addition to the shed, which had grown into something much larger than the shed itself, a framework of opaque plastic that was misted with transpiration, the odd droplet of water trickling down its sides like a shower stall. Her brother would crash into it.
She stepped forward as if to yell a warning, as if to implore him to abort mission before it was too late. But nothing came out. And realistically, nothing would have stopped him anyway. Heâd made up his mind. About what, Denise couldnât be sure. She suspected, thinking about it now as an adult, that it wasnât even about flying. It was about something else entirely. Maybe a test of convictionâwhere even the failure to take flight would carry with it, somehow, the taste of success; the flavour of something won, something magic, a precious metal, the acridity of brass in the blood that was about to run from his mouth.
He leapt. The cardboard folded up like an inverted umbrella, and he plummeted to the grass, legs collapsing on impact, his body crumpling forward and, with his hands still clinging to the two-by-four in the wing, onto his face. Pushing the flying machine off him, and already crying, he peered up at his shocked audience, his teeth coated red. The three boys whoâd helped him, swapped a stunned look, turned, and fled the scene. Denise wasnât much better in terms of assistance, only managing to stare down into his face, unable to move, playing with her hands, biting her lip.
Eventually their father came running, and her brother was soon whisked off to
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