Now You Are Flying
A short conversation about self love
Now You Are Flying
B is lying down on the sofa, and Sun is sitting in a chair. Sun says, ‘If only it could have gone smoother. Let’s entertain this, then.
‘You leave the pub as usual, you part with your friend, and after you turn the corner, you are truly alone. At this point, instead of going to the field and crying like crazy, you rise out of your body becoming a kind of light blue glowing version of yourself. Your real body or self or whatever, does have to suffer events of the night sadly, but you’re feeling great. Take advantage of it. What do you see? Describe the journey.’
A pause. B has to think about it first.
‘Okay, well… firstly I would get a look at my glowing body. I mean, that seems like quite an urgent matter at this point, the fact that I’m glowing? How did you even think of that? Anyway I’d probably miss a bit of the journey just marvelling at this cosmic entity I’ve become. Not that I would be missing much. It’s tough as well… I mean when I’m up in the air I don’t see any feelings of fear or shame, I just see… a person hurtling through the streets, sped up by drunkenness. Plenty just like them.
They might lose us for a bit, who knows? I can imagine them disappearing into the darkness and reappearing under the light of streetlamps within seconds. If they knew I was watching they’d probably go and hide.’ B laughs, but it’s that laugh we use before we trail off and become solemn. He trails off and becomes solemn.
‘No, okay – truthfully, I would get distracted. Who wouldn’t? I mean, suddenly sober, and flying high up in the air over my hometown? It’s like a lottery ticket. If I have to tag along with my real self, then fine I will. But along the way, I’d wonder what the tops of certain buildings look like, what people’s gardens look like, you know things you never see, I might go even higher and get a view of all the lights decorating the town, a nice cosy view. Really, I’m not paying much attention to that drunk person down below. What was once a dizzying journey under blinding spotlights becomes… a pleasantly chilly cruise. Sure, I could fly right down next to them, and now they’re beginning to walk up the steep road towards the field, but I don’t want to. I mean, of course, I don’t want to! I don’t want to look at them, see them breathing so heavily, and seething for no reason. I mean, I already did it, why would I watch it happening to me? Yeah, no, I think I’ll stay up in the air. Sing to myself, la la la, not a care in the world.’
Another pause, as if to let the words finish ringing out fully. B taps his foot. Sun looks at B and uses the silence to say, ‘Well there’s really not much else to talk about is there?’ and there isn’t. This is the only thing we can talk about, before we start talking about anything else. We’re not very good at imagining away from something like this.
‘Okay, I’ll just get to it. When we get to the field, I fly ahead and position myself further back so I can see everything. I’m making it sound like I’m at the theatre or something, which makes sense because we do go for seats at the back most of the time. Ooh, this is good. The field is like the stage, dark and waiting to be filled with light. I imagine people filing in, but it's not full it’s kind of sparse. But that’s becasue this is not a popular show, only the cult fans are here. Ghostly bodies, right at the front on those benches; it is cold, but they are excited. I am not. If I could shout out, I would say they’re wasting their time; the lights never turn on and the performer just stumbles on in the dark anyway. I mean come on, it’s true! That’s more or less what happens. It’s quiet enough that I can hear a few voices, chatting about nothing, but my eavesdropping is shortly interrupted by the rustling of the bush to the left. Enter the star of the show.’ B’s face scrunches up slightly.
‘From where I sit, they’re just a grossly bright torchlight waving in the wind. Some of the light reflects back onto their purposelessly rushed legs moving them through the grass. That’s it. Everything else is void of shape or colour. But then I can hear it, and you know it does feel strange. I can hear my own sobs escaping out into the air, as if being played back to me. I said it would feel strange, but I can’t imagine how i would really react. Hearing oneself crying? Maybe it would hit that empathetic bone in my body, and I would start to cry too, tears of glowing blue glitter. But maybe I’d feel repulsed, like I was an intruder in a private experience. I don’t know, and if I never find a way to split my body in two and become a light blue astral entity, I’ll probably never know.’ B sits up to face Sun. ‘Did you really have to get so specific? You could have just said out of body experience.’
Sun gets offended, ‘That’s what you take away from this? Well, pardon me for giving a bit of flavour to the story. Pardon me for having an imagination!’ This triggers a series of groaning sighs followed by a train of back-and-forth gibberish bickering that I don’t really catch. It’s mostly, ‘just trying to help you’ against ‘who said I needed help!’ It’s like watching parents fighting. ‘Okay shut up. Five, your turn, what do you reckon?’ Sun says as she turns to me. B is quiet and looks at me intently. He likes my advice, sometimes. We’re all respectful to each other here.
‘I probably reckon the exact same as you.’ They both smiled. ‘Please, come on,’ Sun says. ‘We need to talk about this.’ I didn’t wanna hear that. I didn’t wanna weigh in. I was hoping they would do most of the talking for me. I didn’t say a word, the space felt awkward and heavy. ‘Okay,’ Sun said. ‘What about if you could talk to them? All the conditions are the same, but you can go down there and talk to yourself. And they can see you.’ They both look at me, ready to latch onto my words. I take a deep breath before speaking.
‘I tell them that they’re not dreaming, get all of the shock control out of the way. You’re okay, this is a bit strange, yes. But you’re okay. Something along those lines. Then, I would just try and make conversation. Ask them about their night, or something. We both know it was good, but I’m just trying to… distract them pretty much. I feel like seeing themselves as an astral projection would really sober them up.’ They both chuckle, and so do I. ‘But if that wasn’t enough, I’d keep talking until they realise, they should just go home. And then I’d watch them go home, taking a completely different route, probably the one by the station and the shops. Not by the field. They would never end up crying like that, they’d just bustle into the house, go to bed and fall asleep within two minutes.’
They weren’t expecting the silence. ‘That’s it?’ B blurted out. I crossed my arms. Sun punched B in the arm and he whinged ‘ow’.
‘What?’ I say, ‘I’m just trying to be a little more practical. Not everyone can romanticise everything and get all philosophical like you, B. I want to help us.’
‘I think that’s what we all want.’ Sun said.
‘Yeah.’ B agreed. ‘Of course.’
Sun continued, ‘I only tried this just to get us thinking about it. You can remove a lot of the regret and weirdness and whatever negative stuff might be trapped by just talking about it. If you can see yourself from a distance you see yourself like you see everyone else. Well… perhaps not everyone, but everyone you care about. And I know we care.’
I do care.