Rooftop Flying

By Jenna Pan

Flashing neon signs lit up the streets with every hue imaginable, advertising everything from booze to drugs to good-quality women. Or not-so good quality. It depended on the size of a guy’s wallet. Colors flashed in and out of existence on white stone and metal, and what one moment was red the next was blue and then could be green or orange or any one of another thousand colors. It was enough to send a guy into a seizure. So, cool to look at, but seizure-inducing.  

            Tricked-out cars and motorcycles flashed by at speeds that would have the drivers arrested if the police dared to come into the area, which they didn’t if they were smart; they’d probably be mugged if they did. There was a cacophony of honking, yelling, and swearing as vehicles constantly threatened to collide with each other and explode into yellow and orange balls of fire, thus killing the drivers and giving a good show to anyone else watching nearby.         At the corner he swerved left, heading away from the overcrowded main street to the slightly less crowded side street. Here, instead of being crushed by the crowd, a person only got mildly buffeted by it. Meaning that the average guy only got stepped on, tackled, or knocked over five times a minute instead of ten. A big improvement.

The boy rolled his eyes, sidestepping another stumbling idiot that didn’t know enough not to get high, or drunk, or whatever he was in the middle of the day. Whatever. It wasn’t his problem if the idiot got mugged.

Yeah, walking in the slums sucked. Then the boy stopped, tilting his head back to look at the jagged, uneven skyline. A slow smile curled lips, and he could feel a wash of excitement start to bubble up in his chest.

Who said he had to walk on the ground?

The ribbed tin beneath his feet crashed each time his feet slammed into it, the discordant sound almost painful to his ears. His hands pumped furiously, back and forth, and the air was fire in his lungs. Muscles in his legs and back were stretched tight, like the wire strings of a violin—almost taut enough to snap.  

            It was all worth it.

            It was like flying. Or as close to flying as he could imagine, at least, because other than that leap off the roof when he was five, he had never really flown. But right now, the wind whipping through his hair and the fresh sunlight on his back was bliss.

            He cursed as he nearly tripped over a stray ledge, something that would have sent him tumbling down a good twenty-five feet. That would’ve hurt. A lot.

            It would be so easy to fall, to miss a step and plummet the forty feet to the ground. The human body just wasn’t made for this, for leaping across rooftops. It wasn’t meant to jump that ledge, swing around that chimney, or to leap across that gap. The boy could imagine the feeling of his stomach bottoming out as he fell and the pain of bones snapping like dry wood as he slammed onto the black concrete.

            Then there was no more time for thought. No time to think, only react. Everything was cast aside for pure instinct.

            He ran, leapt, skid, dodging patches of ruined slate, pointed rooftops, and satellite dishes. He jumped, twisting his body to just miss a skylight peeking out of the slate. The moment after the boy hit the roof again he was off.

            Then a gap between this roof and the next break in the roofs came at him, challenging him to cross it. To beat it and defy gravity. Even from here, he could see that it was long—a jump of at least seven to eight feet.

            The boy grinned. Fun!

            Licking his lips unconsciously, he readied himself for the leap. Sweat beaded on his forehead and then froze in the icy wind. This is it. His consciousness narrowed to that last stretch of ground and then the open air after it, a wide, endless sea of space. The roaring of the ocean filled his ears.

Closer…closer…clos—Now! He bent his knees and then exploded upwards, and then he was flying. He was soaring through space, magnificent plumage spreading from his back. There were no limits, no restrictions. He was weightless, floating. The sweet liquor of euphoria washed through him, bringing every nerve in his body to life. The exhilaration rushed in his veins and his heart pulsed frantically with the thrill of flying so that he thought it would burst, sanguine with the proof of life. Golden champagne bubbled up in his chest and he was drunk on happiness. This was what he lived for.

And then he crashed and burned.

He landed heavily on the next roof, stumbling. Then, before he could catch his breath, old tile crumbled away beneath his feet, and the boy dropped with a startled yelp.

For a single moment, the boy was breathless. His stomach was plummeting out of his body. His hair whipped across his face, sting his tender cheeks and eyes. Wind rushed around him, chilling his sweat-soaked body.

Then it was over, and he hit the ground with the meaty sound of flesh smacking against wood.

His lungs burned for air. He gasped for breath. Pain stabbed deep in his side, lancing through the rest of his body so that his nerves were raw with it. His vision turned red.

He lay there for a while, grit and dirt digging into his cheek pressed against the synthetic wood floor. The only thing he wants to do now is close his eyes and drift off into black oblivion. His side cramped.

With a groan, he turned and rolled onto his less bruised back. And was confronted with bright sunlight streaming through a large, gaping hole in the ceiling.

He let out a steam of curses. He was in someone’s house. He had just fallen through and broken the roof of someone’s house.

And someone was going to be seething mad.

Now what? What was he supposed to do in a situation like this? It wasn’t like it was everyday he went and put a hole in someone’s roof while landing on it. If he had, he wouldn’t feed himself for the cost of repair bills.

He started in realization Oh, God, the repair bill! The boy most definitely did not want to pay that. He snorted. Like he even could pay that! If only he could just walk out. It was obvious the owners weren’t here; otherwise, they would have come rushing in the second they heard the crash. Unless they were deaf and hadn’t heard it…but the boy somehow doubted that.

But…why couldn’t he just leave? It wasn’t like anyone could stop him. There weren’t any security cameras, no one to point and shout, He did it!

All he had to do was get up, walk across the ratty carpet of the old house, and turn the knob of a beat up wooden door. Then he’d be home free.

Tomorrow, the entire fiasco would be a bad memory. He would go home, have dinner with his parents, and talk about how he was failing math. Then, when they got angry, he would storm off to his room and dream about sneaking onto the rooftops again the next day.

The boy closed his eyes and smiled as he pictured himself running on the roof tops again, imagine the incredible rush as he twisted and leaped and ran.

It would be just like any other day. Except, of course, he would avoid the roofs that looked like they were about to cave in.

He sighed and winced as expanding his diaphragm made the muscles in his side twitch painfully. Ouch.

Could he? Could he just walk out and act as if nothing had ever happened? He didn’t know. But something just didn’t sit right with that. Like…one day he would look back and regret throwing away his responsibilities, regret being so self-centered.

The boy blinked in surprise at his thoughts; it seemed his honorable father had rubbed off on him more than he had thought. He was being pathetically melodramatic. He would regret this, he would wish he had done that—Whatever!

            Of course, he could leave, and like as not, no one would find out. And besides, staying here would just suck. The police would arrive in their flashing, wailing hovercars, point their lovely little stun-guns at him, and then he’d be arrested.

            The boy imagined the yelling and pointed fingers, the disappointed looks in his parents’ eyes that always seemed to hurt no matter what the boy told himself. There would be a trip to the police station and then a suited lawyer with a leather briefcase and tie. Everything would end in a courtroom where the judge and jury would decide some sort of nasty punishment for him. He might be sent to the juvie or forced on probation, and that would just suck.

Why couldn’t he just walk out? What was so wrong about putting himself first and keeping his already in-trouble self out of more trouble? Sure, it might not be right—his father had always told him to ‘own up’ for his own mistakes, but really, how stupid was that? The only thing he would do was make himself miserable. Besides, it was the owners’ fault for not building a better roof.

Yep, he nodded to himself, leaving, like, right now was the best thing to do. He shoved the tiny part of him squeaking about moral consequences and doing the right thing. Screw that!

Gingerly, he picked himself off the floor, wincing as the movement sent agony knifing through his side. It appeared, he thought dazedly, that his ribs were bruised. For a moment, the world turned on its axis as he swayed dizzily. He almost collapsed back onto the floor in a heap of cloth and sprawled limbs. Thankfully, pure stubbornness often won out against the body.

Slowly, the boy stumbled his way to the door, careful not to break anything else in the house. Like that really mattered now.

Eventually, he reached the door, and carefully, he turned the knob and pulled. Dust and the rich and rotten smell of sidewalk food buffeted him.

Then he walked out the door.

Technicolored lights flared in the boy’s eyes as he limped down the alley. Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled down his back in tiny rivulets. He could feel the bruises blossoming like giant, blue-and-black flowers on his back and the painful knife in his ribs. As he took another step, the sharp pain of a badly wrenched ankle arrowed up his leg, and he gasped. The limb was red and swollen, almost too sensitive to walk on.

            Pausing to rest, he leaned against a grimy brick wall covered in graffiti. He looked up at the skyline and sighed. It was too bad, he thought; bruised ribs meant that he wouldn’t be able to go rooftop flying again anytime soon