Grounded

Image by craigmdennis via Flickr

In the sky he could see his target. The fat fluffy cloud to the left, in fact, at that moment it was the only cloud in the sky. He wanted to reach the cloud quickly before it changed shape. He couldn’t believe it wouldn’t be as solid and comfortable and armchair-like as it appeared from the ground.

He stood up and stared at it some more before simply lifting from the ground, slowly at first and straight up, head first. He stopped at a few feet and came straight back down. He couldn’t work out how to change direction and landing was still a huge problem; last time he’d sprained his ankle and had to ring his Dad to pick him up, making some excuse about being attacked.

‘Who by, do you know them? You do don’t you I can tell?’

‘No Dad, I don’t know them, I’ve never seen them before.’

‘What did they take?’

‘Nothing, a police car drove by and they ran away.’

He’d not flown since. If only he had someone he could talk to about it, someone who could teach him. He had to keep it all to himself but he was dying to tell Harry, his best friend. Harry loved science fiction and superheroes. He’d know what to do. If he found out though Jack knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it to himself, no way.

Imagine if people found out, what would happen to him. He’d probably be hounded out of town or burnt for being a witch or his house would be surrounded by cameras and paparazzi and his Dad would be really cross and he would stop his pocket money.

Bu then, surely if he could fly, properly, once he’d got the hang of it and could land and change direction and swoop and all that, then it wouldn’t matter would it? If they came after him he’d just fly away. If his Dad stopped his pocket money he’d fly into the bank and steal some money and they wouldn’t be able to stop him.

But it wouldn’t end well. He imagined flying round and round being chased and shot at by helicopters and RAF jets and ground to air missiles and the whole of the army would be after him and he’d be hit high above the city and fall to the ground like a stone.

Supportive powers

I find myself wanting to get to know more about the old woman in the corner shop. She looks strange with her blue hair and sharp little teeth, but I am used to strange.

Since I moved here the ordinariness of most people has been the biggest struggle. Who could understand me, who could I possibly talk to about what I’ve been through without them calling the police, or the newspapers or completely avoiding me.

This life is so misunderstood.  OK I can teleport and a few other things but I still want to talk to people about normal everyday shit. Why Mondays are so dull, what the weather’s like, how to talk to that woman I keep seeing in the park without making a fool of myself. There’s no one I can do that with at the moment and it really sucks.

I need to talk to people who might understand and be able to empathise. The idea I’ve been toying with for a few years now, but have never stayed in one place long enough to do anything about, is a support group or a self help group for people like me. People with powers, or weird and unusual people, the outcasts – maybe that’s too broad though, I don’t know.

The point is they don’t have to be exactly like me, they don’t have to be teleporters; it could be people who have something about them, something they can do that others wouldn’t understand or if they knew about would just think about how amazing or weird or cool it was.

–          Teleporting, wow that must be amazing? –

It is pretty amazing but I couldn’t share it with anyone and it means I’ve  lived a very lonely life, and that was far from cool. I wanted to talk to people who had similar experiences, who knew what it was like to be strange.

I don’t know why but that old woman seemed like she’d be able to help – just a feeling.

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Inspired by

http://www.writerlylife.com/2010/07/do-some-writing-outside/