The first time that Tommy flies, he is unprepared. He wakes up floating in a crisp November night beneath a half moon, looking into his bedroom window and paddling his bare feet as if submerged in water. He is wearing only his baggy pajamas, his favorite pair with a trail of blue rabbits hopping down the leg seams. Tommy has never felt cold like this before, unhindered by thick gloves or one of his mother’s scarves. The wind screeches into his ears until they feel numb.
Tommy cannot control himself. He throws his arms against the sky but only drifts aimlessly, like a paper plane in the lazy wind. Suburban backyards cloaked by tall wooden fences stretch out before him and behind. He begins to float to Miss Sally’s backyard and her pool, which his mother let him swim in for the first time just five months ago. A plastic tarp encases the pool now; Tommy does not want to be banished forever from Miss Sally’s house for somehow breaking this shield. He tries to swim against the air current, pushing his hands out in front of his eyes and focusing his vision toward his room. Instead the wind upends him, rotating his body like a windmill blade. His pajama shirt slips over his eyes and the world grows fuzzy and coarse and he begins to cry. Tommy’s three-year-old cocker spaniel, Patches, leaps from a mangy doghouse to bark at the sky.
Tommy is still crying and still cannot see when he slides against the side of his house. He tugs on his shirt until he can see where he is and wipes his eyes and nose with his sleeve. Patches barks again and Tommy’s body flushes red and hot. He feels a shameful nakedness. He does not want his mother to wake up and see this. She might scold him and be disappointed, or scream and run away in fear, or hate him forever. Tommy whimpers at the thought of the possible horrors. He grabs his windowsill and pulls himself inside. A lush design of dew-stained flowers greets him as he enters; the wallpaper is washed out and nearly invisible in the darkness of the room, but its familiarity cools Tommy’s nerves. As he floats into his bedroom, he presses his palms against the paper daffodils and uses them as a lesson: he can control his movements as long as he has resistance, something to push or pull against. The revelation excites him, but at this moment he is too exhausted and overwhelmed to explore it.
So, for now, Tommy keeps things simple: he closes his eyes and pretends that he is an astronaut, returning to his spaceship and the comfort of friends within. He pushes away from his ceiling and falls to his blanket like a feather against dead air.
Tommy flies again on the next day, just outside the cracked brick walls of his elementary school. He is running to the playground for recess, one step behind his classmates, when he drifts an inch too far from the ground and loses his balance. As soon as he realizes what has happened, he stifles a panicked sob and inhales the blood pooling in his nose. Tommy climbs back to his feet and tries to ignore the raw pain of his scraped knees. There are no rocks or bumps on the ground beneath him; he does not know how he could explain the fall to the other children, who would see any explanation as another reason to make their jokes. Tommy has heard many jokes at his expense; though he has never told his mother about this mockery, she always buys him chocolate chip ice cream and allows him to walk Patches through the dog park on those days when his feelings are hurt the most. He does not want this scene to worsen his abuse, so he covers his bloody lip with a coat sleeve and tries to pretend that nothing has happened.
Andy, one of the second-graders, sees Tommy’s dirtied face from the swing-sets, and he points and laughs. Tommy turns away to face the brick wall of the school. Andy is freckled with wild hair like brushfire. He stands two inches taller than Tommy, carries broad, rocky shoulders, and knows that Tommy is terrified by him. For a moment, that terror outweighs Tommy’s other fears: Tommy stands on his toes and clenches his fists, trying to recapture the moment of flight for a few seconds longer so he can hide on the school rooftop. Once there, he thinks in his panic, the world will slow enough to allow him to think of an explanation for what he has done.
Before he can succeed, Tommy feels a large hand rest upon his shoulder. The physical presence reminds him of his mother; sweat beads across his forehead and down his cheeks. Tommy turns to face a tall, gray man in a flannel jacket with a face like a smiling prune. Tommy has seen him before; the man is a second-grade teacher who, along with many of the other teachers, has seen Andy push and bully Tommy before. The teacher brings the two children inside to see Miss Gladstone, their first-grade teacher. Miss Gladstone, who smiles a lot and whose hair reminds Tommy of his mother, has known Tommy well since his first day at school. She has done everything in her power to be a friend to him. Now, she rests a hand on Andy’s knee, as the four perch upon undersized plastic chairs, and asks him to apologize to Tommy. Andy instead yells that he has lost today’s recess for no reason. He says that Tommy must have tripped himself because Tommy is a freak. He stands and continues to yell until his forehead darkens to the color of his hair. Tommy keeps his face buried in his hands. He imagines that he can hear Patches barking with triumph as she chases a butterfly or a grasshopper as though it were the only important thing in the whole world.
Once the two teachers realize that Andy will not stop yelling, they decide to deal with the children in separate rooms. Miss Gladstone brings Tommy to the nurse’s office. She insists to Tommy that he’ll be fixed right up, but the nurse cannot remove Tommy’s hands from his face to treat him. He won’t let her, not even with the dirt stinging his nostrils. He does not want to listen to Miss Gladstone as she walks him back to homeroom while patting his shoulder and telling him that she understands how hard things can be sometimes. Tommy has always liked Miss Gladstone because she is nice and gives him his own box of crayons at his desk in the back of homeroom, but he does not want to listen to her right now. In his thoughts, Tommy can hear Patches barking, and he just wants to go home.
When Tommy’s mother finally arrives at the school, she speaks alone with Miss Gladstone. Tommy watches his mother listen and nod her head. After a minute, she collects Tommy’s backpack from the closet, pulls Tommy into her arms, and rests him across her shoulder. She plucks clumps of dirt from his blonde hair and whispers to him that he needs a haircut. Tommy gazes at frayed strands of his mother’s ponytail as she talks to Miss Gladstone about how many times this has happened already this school year. Tommy’s mother is loud and coarse. He feels her grip upon him tighten every time she says his name. She says that she does not want that Andy child to be allowed near Tommy; she knows that her baby boy struggles at times, but also knows that he would be okay if they only kept him away from the troublemakers. Some of what she says confuses Tommy, but her embrace is warm and he knows that she is speaking in his defense.
Tommy likes it when his mother carries him. Here he is suspended but not weightless; as long as he remains slung over her shoulder, he doesn’t worry about where he might be going. When she sets him inside the car, Tommy’s mother kneels down and buckles his seat belt for him. This is an old routine, something she does every day after school; Tommy has whined before on the rare days when it has slipped her mind. She pulls a tissue from her purse, and Tommy watches her wipe dirt from his face. Her eyes are hidden behind large sunglasses. She is wearing bright lipstick. Tommy knows that she is unhappy about leaving work in the middle of the day to save him, even though she never mentions it while dabbing at his eyes and whispering to him that he’s all better now.
When the two arrive at home, Tommy’s mom gives him his backpack and tells him to work on his homework, and she goes back to the car. Tommy stands in front of the cream-panel townhouse and collects himself. When he walks inside, closing and locking the front door behind him just as he was taught, he puts the backpack on the couch and heads towards the backyard. Patches presses her nose against the sliding glass door as he approaches. Her torso trembles under the force of her tail. As he opens the door, she lifts her front legs off the ground, trying to reach his face so she can lick it. Tommy kneels down to make it easier for her. Her wet tongue eases the soreness at the edges of his eyes. Patches has soft, shaggy fur, and though she smells like mud and hot breath, Tommy wants to hug her forever.
Tommy flies for the third time on the next day within the local grocery store. Just behind him are his mom and her new friend, a slumping man with a goatee and a chestnut jacket. Tommy has always found the grocery store bewildering, with its poor lighting and its gray shelves like skyscrapers and a ceiling too high to fathom, but today his anxiety strains at its limits. He does not want to be seen flying right now. He is still not sure how his mother would react to seeing it, and that uncertainty remains more terrifying than any shame he can anticipate. Tommy clutches the grocery cart and tries to plant his shoes into the tile. He hides his face each time his mother looks towards him because he knows that if she sees his wide eyes she will know that something is wrong.
Tommy’s mother is wearing her hair down in streams and has pulled a black snowcap to her ears. Tommy and she are, as always, wearing matching blue winter coats. She and her friend have been talking without pause since they met at the store entrance, when she introduced him to Tommy as George. Tommy is not worried that the man will notice anything, because aside from a broad smile and a handshake when they first saw each other, the friend has gone out of his way to avoid looking at Tommy. Instead, the friend has focused on Tommy’s mother. He laughs and nods every time she speaks and leans his shoulders in to speak to her with hushed urgency.
Tommy has not been listening to their conversation, however, because he has been too focused on trying to make himself invisible. He notices every time someone in the store looks in his direction; he catches their eyes straying downward, perhaps at his hovering feet, perhaps not. Tommy takes quick glances at the eyes of passers-by in an attempt to reassure himself that they notice nothing: young, gangly men walking in confident strides who wink and grin at him as if to share a secret; teenage couples giggling and kissing and stealing looks in Tommy’s direction from behind loose clothing; old women straining against their carts and squinting through thick glasses. Tommy is particularly worried about the old women, because he cannot tell where they are looking.
In the check-out line, the bubbly cashier tries to tell Tommy how cute he is, but Tommy is too preoccupied to acknowledge her. His mother has to apologize for his rudeness. This only makes things worse; Tommy’s mom stares down at him and asks him if something’s wrong. Tommy, who can hear the impatience in her voice, shakes his head furiously and moves his legs to pretend that he is walking normally. He watches his mother whisper something to her friend, who only nods in response.
When the three of them reach his mother’s car, she opens the back door and kneels down. She wants to help Tommy into his seat, as always. At the moment, however, Tommy is worried that, if she grabs him, she will notice his hovering feet. Before her arms can grasp his body, he pulls himself into the car, using the door as leverage, and buckles his seat belt. After taking a moment to savor victory, Tommy realizes that this is the first seat belt he has buckled. Tommy’s mother has always buckled his seat belt, of course, but here he has done it quickly and instinctively, and Tommy thinks that it is not so difficult after all.
Tommy’s mother stares at him, her arms still extended as if to pick him up. For a moment she is still, her lips hanging open slightly as if frozen at the end of a kiss. Tommy can feel his jacket pressing against the seat belt; he knows his body is trying to float through the car sunroof. The panic distracts him, so that he does not notice or wonder about the difficulty with which his mother closes her mouth and lowers her arms, or the sluggish congratulations she whispers to him for being so capable. All that he can think to do is smile and look her in the eyes, to reassure her that there is nothing to notice.
It is another week before Tommy flies for the last time, but he has been wearing sweatpants and an extra shirt to bed ever since that first night, and he is prepared. When he opens his eyes he is just a foot or so away from his window, and it is not quite as cold as before. He grabs the windowsill and pulls himself close to the aluminum siding. He can’t hear Patches and hopes that she’s asleep.
When Tommy was allowed to swim at Miss Sally’s for the first time, she taught him how to swim laps by pushing his legs against the side of the pool to propel him back and forth. Tommy tries to remember her instructions as he places his feet against the wall of the house: he bends his knees, curls into a fetal position, holds it for a moment, and pushes out as hard as he can. Even with all the force he can muster, Tommy only moves at the pace of a walk, but he is delighted that the maneuver works at all. He allows himself to relax as he floats face-down upon the air.
Below Tommy is his quarter-acre backyard: his muddy sandbox full of forgotten toys; the moldy doghouse with its red faux-barnyard roof; and his mother’s flower garden, half-dead from neglect. The flower garden has only been in the backyard for the past year; his mother had wanted something that was hers alone, something aside from Tommy and work. She had explained to this to Tommy on the day she planted the first rose, as she knelt in the dirt wearing blue jeans and an old college t-shirt. She had tapped Tommy on the nose with a potting glove and laughed at the dirt left behind, but Tommy pouted, his feelings hurt by her divided attention. The flowers were watered and loved for only two weeks before his mother forgot about them. He passes by them now and looks to the back of the fence, trembling with excitement as it drops from his view.
Just beyond Tommy’s backyard is a small patch of forest that he has never been allowed to enter. He closes his eyes for a moment as he approaches the trees and he hears the paper-shuffle rustling of the branches. It is only when he sweeps his arm to reach for a tree branch that he realizes that he has been flying upward as well as forward. Panic rises in his chest, and Tommy looks around for something to secure himself with, afraid of floating away into the endless sky. After a few moments of blind scrambling, he brushes against the top of a massive pine tree. He grabs hold and refuses to loosen his grip, even as the needles dig into his palm.
Tommy takes a moment to look out at the forest, which he finds to be larger than he could have imagined from his backyard. Green treetops form a mountain range as far into the distance as he can see. Tommy pulls himself close to the pine, trying to get a better view of the other trees. The crescent moon provides too little light for Tommy to see below from so high above; the trees appear to sink endlessly beyond the center of the earth. Tommy wants to examine their roots, but he does not know what predators may lie in wait for him to tread closer to the ground. This journey has been a large enough risk, he thinks, and he has swallowed more than enough fear just to make it this far. His heart might burst at the strain of any more reasons to be anxious.
There is a silver owl on a tree across from Tommy. Tommy knows that it is an owl, though he can only see the glimmer of its eyes and beak against the moonlight. He wants to ask the owl if it lives here, but instead he just waves to it, allowing his body to float upwards save for the hand which grips the pine branch. The owl does not respond; its eyes twitch to him and then to the left and right, but it does not seem to notice Tommy at all. Tommy’s mother has told him that owls are some of the smartest birds in the world, and he wants to ask it some questions. Tommy has never heard an owl’s hoot except on television shows; he wants to ask the owl if it could hoot for him, as loudly as possible, and show him how to hoot as well. He would still like to ask if it lives here, and if it doesn’t, Tommy wants to know why it wouldn’t just fly back home and stay at home forever rather than perch in the cold and the dark. He doesn’t know how to ask these questions, though, and the owl’s distant gaze makes him too nervous even to inch any closer to the bird.
Eventually Tommy decides that the pine branch hurts his hand too much to stay. He waves goodbye to the forest and to the owl, who fails to acknowledge the gesture. Tommy pushes his feet against the center of the tree and launches himself homeward. Tommy tries to angle himself downwards, closing his eyes and thinking about pushing against pool water. A wind rushes in from behind and whips his body around. He keeps his eyes closed as he rotates, trying not to become too disoriented. He is very proud of himself for getting the hang of this, for improving, by himself. Tommy usually has trouble getting better at things, even when his mom and Miss Gladstone and the principal try to help him, but this is only his second full flight and already he has some control.
When Tommy opens his eyes, he can see past the highest point of his house, almost out to the strip of pockmarked road that lies beyond the driveway. He is still higher than he wants to be, but he catches the top of the roof. From here he can see Patches’ doghouse. The dog is asleep and snoring just like he had hoped. He hopes she is dreaming about butterflies and grasshoppers. If he wanted to, Tommy could climb down his chimney like Santa Claus, but Tommy doesn’t want to do that. He could tell his mother about this night as well as with each other moment, but he decides to make it his own, something separate from his mother and school and Patches. It is a secret that he will keep private for the rest of his life. He crawls down the roof like Spiderman now, a silent hero sneaking through his bedroom window and floating back to his bed sheets.
Charles Sebian-Lander is the author of Strangers in the Brain.
