Out of Body

[Therin]

The line was long. The store was busy. I stopped watching the line and went back to sliding one item at a time across the whirling laser that read barcodes. No conversation today. It just wasn’t a day for talking. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling failed to mimic sunlight. It felt dark. My customers were silent. My fellow cashiers were silent. The manager was silent. The store was silent. It was a silent day.

“Josh! Break!”

I flipped my light off and went back to cashiering. Something nagged at me, something inside and outside, but unseen and unsensed. I looked up and began telling people my line was closed. I finished off the last few customers, left my belongings where they were, secured my terminal, and followed that nagging. Slowly, toward the door, and outside.

I blinked at the sudden glare of real light. I looked up, shading my eyes at first with my hands, staring toward the heavens that I knew had called me. Something began to change within, growing and building, massing behind my eyes and threatening to burst through in the bright summer light. I didn’t feel the heat. I felt nothing.

Then I soared. Up from the ground, through the clouds, to stare in awe at the magnificent vista before me. I looked over my shoulder to find brilliant, white-feathered wings stroking powerfully from my back. I flapped harder, streaking through the air and basking in the beauty of white what lay above and below me. It was like sticking my head out the window of an airplane. My heart thrilled with joy. I banked, angled lower, slowed my strokes to glide lazily downward in circles.

I descended into pure whiteness before breaking through the lower cloud level to admire the spread of planet before me. I was over the city. Buildings reached for me, inviting me to land, to rest my wings, to take a load off on one of the flat roofs. So I did. I laid back and stared up at the clouds I had always dreamt of reaching, not feeling the rough stone beneath me, but rather my wings, soft and touchable, yet strong and sinewy when the time came. I rolled over and got slowly to my feet.

Walking to the edge of the tall building, I stared far out through the clear air to see my store on the horizon, waiting. But I didn’t want to go back. Couldn’t go back. Wouldn’t go back. I wanted to stay, to fly, to soar forever, to experience limitless wonders of discovery. I stepped up onto the ledge that surrounded the roof and looked down. Too far to fall. Not enough space to fly. But I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t live without this. Never. It was impossible. How I’d survived this long escaped me. I looked down again. The street beckoned. I felt myself leaning forward, losing my balance, falling.

Steel and stone rushed past my peripheral vision. My eyes were focused on the street, which reached up quickly to embrace me, to comfort me, to save me from my life. Impact.

A single moment, frozen in time. My soul emitting a shock of power from within my body, two figures outside it. One dark and one light. Both winged. Mirror images of each other, but for the wings, feathered and leathery. I was frozen, my body just touching where the street would have been, the street bowing downward beneath my soul, rippling upward around me, cracking, windows shattering, glass frozen in infinite diversity, refracting points of light, cars frozen in the air, upside down, side on, right side up, the two figures with their arms spread, as if to embrace me, held back by the energy from within.

I blinked, and lowered my arms to my sides, feeling the heat on my face. Then I turned and made my way back indoors, back to my terminal, and back to work. I held a quiet smile on my face for the next twelve hours, as I finished work, went home, did my home things, went to sleep, and dreamed…of nothing.

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Comments appreciated, you know the drill.

Also, you're welcome to suggest alternate titles. I couldn't come up with one I really liked.

[Enon]

ummmm Visions of Self?
Suspension?
Freeze frame?
titles i like and was nicely written but got a little confused but had to reread and think didnt get images popping in head imedately.

[Terin]

Escape
Visiting Hours
Looking Through a Barred Window

I'm interpreting this as a free spirit who is trapped in a mundane world, who gets a glimpse of the spiritual pastures beyond. I like it
-T

[Minosheep]

Break Time!

I liked it. Vivid imagery, though, like Enon said, I had to reread a few things.

[Shandriz]

It looks much better separated into paragraphs like that, Lews-y ^_^

[Therin]

t'anks! ^_^

[Shandriz]

Welcome!

[Terin]

General, your work looks a bit different today, did you cut it's hair?
-T

[Therin]

Hmmm...methinks not, but mayhap I has done so...