Sophie Cornwell

Ascension

I never thought  I would die with chipped nail polish. A small part of me always expected to die young. In that image, I was neatly clothed in a flowing dress, my hair long and styled. Maybe curled, maybe braided, but always long like the princesses I read about in fairytales. I always imagined I’d look a bit like Shakespeare's Ophelia, my skin pale with death but still clinging to the beauty I held in life. 

I pick at the remnants of the purple nail polish on my thumb and watch a flake chip off, disappearing in the wind. I shiver. I didn’t expect it to be so cold up here. Why didn’t I think to bring a sweater?

Oh, you idiot. I laugh out loud to myself. A sweater? What would I do with a sweater now? I stop fiddling with my fragmented nail polish and grip the railing so I can lean my head back. I should enjoy the chill of this breeze. I should let it take me in.

I wonder what the cars passing by think of me. Aam I just a crazy woman at the top of the Interstate 8 bridge to them? Do they think I’m just admiring the view? Do they even notice me at all? It is probably best they don’t because I am certainly no Ophelia. I left my parents' home in a hurry, still wearing the worn-out leggings and oversized t-shirt I slept in the night before. The shirt is wrinkled but smells like my mother’s favorite laundry softener. 

I left my car on the side of the highway, maybe twenty yards from where I stand now. I wonder what my mother will do with it. 

I lean forward and look over the railing at the rocks below. I wonder how long it takes a flake of nail polish to fall 459 feet. I wonder how long it will take me to.

I push myself off the ground and swing my legs over so I am sitting on the railing with my feet dangling off the edge. I smile to myself. It kind of feels like the first time I sat on a big kid swing. My legs were too short for my feet to reach the ground and I felt like I was a thousand feet in the air. I was scared, and I cried until my mom gave me a gentle push on my back. She kept pushing me harder and harder until I wasn’t crying anymore. I was laughing. I watched as the sky got closer and closer with each push. I wanted to reach into it, take it by its blue hand, and let it carry me away. I heard my mom telling me to jump. I could hear the smile in her voice and for whatever reason I wasn’t scared anymore. I let go of the rusted chains of the swing and let myself soar into that blue sky, hoping it would grab hold of me and never let me go. 

Instead, I came crashing down and sand lodged itself in my little pink light-up shoes. 

I look up at the sky. I have never been so close to it. I have flown in a plane a few times, but that is nothing like this. This is just me and the vast expanse of blue. No metal boundaries between us. Not even a cloud to obscure us from one another. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

I reach my hand up toward it. Take me. Please, take my hand. 

I lean forward off of the railing. 

When I was a little girl I used to pray for wings. Powerful, sparkling white wings that could fly me far, far away from everything and take me somewhere new. I wanted them to carry me to a place where I didn’t have to be afraid of the dark and the evil things that lurked in it. I wanted to be carried as far as possible from the man who crept into my bedroom, telling my mother that he just wanted to tuck me in, making her think that she could trust him alone with me. He made me swear to a life of silence. And then he had the nerve to be angry with me when I eloped at twenty-one because he didn’t have the chance to walk his daughter down the aisle. He thought that I would allow him to put his arm through mine that day. To touch me. To even be near me. I wanted to fly away from the memories of him kneeling by my bed, pushing aside pink shoes, lighting them up, and illuminating the sand that spilled out. 

I spread my arms out and let the wind swish past my bare skin, my chin lifted high. Maybe God will grant me those wings now. Maybe I was never able to fly away because I had never tried, not really. I just always prayed and prayed and prayed over and over and over again but maybe God could never answer my prayers because I never gave him a chance to. Or maybe he did answer my prayers. Maybe he did give me my wings and I just never found out because I never took the leap and tried. 

All those nights I lay alone, wondering what I had to do to escape. Nights with a husband that was supposed to protect me. A husband that was maybe just a different futile attempt at escaping my childhood because I couldn’t figure out how to fly. But now that husband is gone too. He took this jump before me, and he was able to fly away. Wait- no. He didn’t fly. He didn’t even jump. He just put a bottle to his head, took too many sips and that was that. No, it wasn’t a bottle. It was a gun. No, it wasn’t just a gun, it was both. A bottle, a gun, and a trigger. That’s what they told me. It was while he was overseas, far from home. They put him on a plane and flew him far, far away away from everything and somewhere new. Someplace that he didn’t understand. Somewhere in Africa, but they couldn’t tell me exactly where. Couldn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t, it’s all the same. They put him on a plane with big, metal wings and flew him away, and never brought him back. That’s why I want real wings, my own wings. I can come and go wherever I want if I have my own wings. 

But no, that’s not what happened to him at all. We divorced. We divorced and I moved back in with my parents. We split everything equally and haven’t spoken since. 

No, that’s not what happened either. We just talked about divorce. But only once, and only because my mother made us. She saw the bruises and she blew it way out of proportion. She screamed so loud she rattled the windows and knocked books off of shelves and reminded me what it was like to keep things hidden for the sake of keeping the peace. She insisted that we divorce and that I escape from him and go back to her and my father where she swore I would be safe. But she didn’t understand that I was no more safe with them than I was with him. At least my husband apologized after doing the things he did to me. At least he gave old bruises time to heal before creating new ones. And maybe she would know what her husband used to do to me if she paid attention to more than just bruises. She never saw a single thing that man did to me because he taught me to keep my mouth shut and play the part of a good little girl in a happy little family. And she was perfectly fine with turning the other way and playing into that narrative of the perfect, wholesome family when it was her husband hurting me. But the minute my husband was anything but perfect she wanted us to get a divorce. But she didn’t understand that he was trying. At least my husband was trying. He was trying so hard to be everything that he was supposed to be but a man can only try for so long and eventually, he couldn’t try anymore so he finally took that leap and—

No. 

He did not leap. I know that. Everyone on his deployment knows that because they all heard the sound of the same gunshot that I did not hear because I was too far away. He never got the chance to fly on his own. He was never given real wings. 

But maybe he should have tried like I am. I will be given my wings. I deserve my wings after waiting for so long. 

I stretch my arms as wide as I can like I’m preparing to engulf the earth in a massive embrace. The air whips my hair behind me and my momentum forces my body to lean forward in a nose dive.

I laugh but it probably sounds more like a scream. If this is what it felt like for that little flake of purple nail polish then I wish I had chipped them all free so they could all be carried away by the breeze and be twisted and turned by the wind’s hand. This is what it feels like to be utterly free. To be soaring through the air with no attachments, no securities, just the thought of your wings about to open up and put you in flight. 

I wonder where I will go when I get my wings. Maybe I will fly to Florence, Italy. I’ll find a boat to live on and drink fine wine while I write about the people riding their bikes down the docks. I’ll have my sparkling white wings folded around me like a friendly embrace, keeping me safe. And if anyone ever tried to hurt me, I would just fly away. Maybe I would go to the top of Mount Everest, just so I can see the highest point of the earth and know that I have been higher because I have finally been given my wings. Then I’ll fly to Ireland and explore the remnants of castles, once majestic and strong. I’ll look like a painting of a Renaissance angel who has fallen to earth, with my wings spread out across the crumbling remains of the castle halls. But I will never, ever fly back to my parent's home. They will never get the honor of seeing my wings. My home will be the sky after I get my wings, and only it will deserve to see them in their full beauty.

My body continues turning forward, out of my nose dive so I am now completely flipped around, facing up towards the sky. That big, blue sky that I always wanted to dive into, but always just fell farther and farther away from. I watch as it grows more and more distant. No. This isn’t how it is supposed to be. The sky is supposed to save me. It’s supposed to wrap me in its hands and give me the wings I need to fly away. I have begged God for years for these wings, he cannot deny them from me now when I need them the most. 

I reach my hand out in a desperate plea. I have never been farther from that expanse of clear blue. I have never wanted to be closer to it. Please, I beg as I tilt farther back. I press my chin to my chest and I can now see my toes obscuring my vision of the sky. I am too close to the ground. I stretch my hand out as far as I can reach. Please, take me.

The earth brushes the back of my scalp. I close my eyes. Why? Why did you let me go again? I thought I would do it this time. I thought I would fly. I close my outstretched hand into a fist but feel light, cool fingers intertwined with mine. I open my eyes and see that the sky is now growing closer with the wind pulling me by my outstretched hand. I feel its grip on me loosen, and its soft embrace is replaced with long, white feathers bursting from my fingertips and down the flesh of my arms. I feel the muscles of my back contract and my spinal cord burst as the new muscles supporting these great, powerful wings rip through my shirt and body. My arms are transformed into the powerful, alabaster wings that I have wanted since I was a little girl. 

I let them carry me up higher and higher into the sky until I am surrounded by every shade of blue and the ground beneath me is nothing but a speck, a mere memory of a world that I never belonged in. This is where I belong. In the sky, far away, unable to be touched by another human ever again. This is what it feels like to fly. This is what it means to be truly free.

I turn my head for a clear view of my sparkling wings, but I am blinded by their light, and everything turns to white.

Sophie Cornwell is a writer and poet living in San Diego, California, where she is currently obtaining an MA in writing. She finds most of her inspiration in nature, music, and her own personal experiences. When she is not writing, she is hiking, freediving, and thinking about writing. She is also probably eating Cheez-Its right now.