Let us fly

I woke up this morning, and my room was a darkened amalgam of hazy shapes and muted colours. I knew if I reached out I would touch my desk chair, but I could barely make out its form. I couldn’t hear when I woke up, but I imagined that I got startled from my slumber by that train that reminds me that I’m in Edinburgh, that I stand both in and out of the city, in much the same way that I lay groggily — in and out of sleep. The air was warm, and my covers were soft and comfortable, as if they were an extension of me, wrapped around me in protection. I rolled around, awake, but not quite, thinking, but not quite, dreaming, but not quite. I started deciphering the green short-sleeved shirt, and the long black pants, with the belt still around them — all drooped atop my desk chair. I could almost see the knee-area wrinkles at the back of the pants, evidence of much sitting and standing and sitting and standing, and jumping and jumping and jumping. I could see the way they criss-crossed across each other, as if each intersection of them marked the spot where the soreness in my muscles now resides. I could see the way my arm sleeve had been left inside the shirt, from when I was in a hurry to plop my sweating, aching body upon this very bed I was now floating in and out of sleep on. I could smell the immediate yet somehow distant memory of the night’s odors, the sweat-filled hair flicks mingling with the designer perfume, the cigarette haze swirling around the invisible smell of the beer that each nose could taste in the roof of one’s mouth. It was the madeleine of my morning, and it made me recall the ringing repetition of the rolling drops, the stuttering bass, the whimsical rhythm, the beckoning buildup. I remembered the whirling, swirling, twirling arms, the whoops of delight and the obliteration of time throughout the night. The long walk back rose up in my mind in flickers — I saw again how I had walked alone under the passing lamps, past the closed café where I had had my lunch hours ago, down the street I had hovered over on the bus ride up, and in front of a royal palace that has seen monarchic dynasties come and go.

And then I woke up. I saw all of my clothes on that chair, but realized that it wasn’t the ambient noise of the train through the open window that had awakened me. It was the little slit in the curtains that I had not closed properly in my haste to get to sleep. That slit opened up a slice of our star that had found its way straight onto my pillow, and once I had looked at it, and even as I could only see the minuscule particles of dust dancing in the air, I knew that it was going to be a brilliant day. I opened up the curtains, which confirmed my suspicions, and the blinding light flooded my room as if to jealously wipe away the contrasts of the night. In the distance, I could see some brave, solitary souls, climbing the steps of Arthur’s Seat, like princes of the morning. There was one already at the top, undoubtedly admiring the view which was solely his for the moment. Perhaps my bleary eyes were imagining things, but I could have sworn he had his arms raised up high, and I imagined I heard a barbaric yawp of the kind that was not heard since Whitman was first fascinated by some leaves of grass. I remember thinking with absolute certainty that if this enterprising spirit would jump, he would fly. But that shadow instead turned and started walking back down, and though I could barely see it, I thought it appeared defeated. As I too turned away, I was reminded of the unforgettable words of Toni Morrison: “You wanna fly, you gotta give up the shit that weighs you down.”

And so a new day began.