Brilliant Short Stories

coincidental.

The Man Who Could Fly

Imagination is a wonderful gift endowed to all human-beings. More often than not it runs riot if unchecked in the formative years until a person reaches the middle-teens. Parents are afforded a variety of fatuous tales related by their offspring with high suspicion, usually dismissing them as wild imagination, which is par for the course. Young individuals are able to imagine they have been promoted to become captain of their national football or netball team, or as the king or queen of a country, or perhaps an astronaut flying in outer space, or a super-hero or heroine carrying out an impossible task for humanity. Imagination has no bounds or limits. Yet, as the exigencies of life take their toll, it is usually greatly inhibited by the advance of practical application, reason and logic in time. This wonderful gift becomes heavily suppressed in most people eventually, but it is never lost. In the pace of life, where most people wish to be considered normal, whereby they attempt to act pretty much like everyone else, imagination becomes relegated to the sub-conscious mind where it plays its part in secret for the individual alone. It may creep into ambition or lust or desire but only in the mind... never to be revealed to another living soul for fear of revealing that one has trod beyond the bounds of normality. But what happens when imagination loses its broad temerity to focus on one fantastic ideal and nothing else... to become far stronger than any other ideal or ambition in life? Obsession is a strange condition; a whim which becomes irrationally singular. It starts with a mild fantasy that grows like a cancer on the mind feeding always on one single matter. It can hardly be compared with a nasal cold or influenza which can be cured in time. On the contrary, it grips the mind of the individual relating to an idea, a topic, or a person, and refuses adamantly to let go. In many cases there is no cure at all because it becomes a disease which focusses itself on that sanctum we understand to be the inner mind.

Tulley lay flat on his back in his comfortable bed; his body resting perfectly still. It appeared that he was fast asleep but his mind was filled with action. He believed he was laying face-down with his body stretched taut at full length... his eyes staring downwards. He was flying... flying high up above, soaring like a bird free on the wing, experiencing a sensation of exhilaration which surged through him as he hurtled through the open sky. He could feel the clouds, caress the sky, glide, float, and move nearer to Heaven. Below, the ground remained hazy but he could see the mountains all around, their craggy slopes occasionally interrupted by clumps of trees and bushes. At first, he traversed on cross-currents, progressing forward steadily, then he yawed and swerved across the mountainous terrain, enjoying every second of the flight. His body felt as light as air and he could manoeuvre in any direction at whim. This was an experience he would never forget; it was the last area of opportunity denied to man... to fly by himself... on his own account. Since time immemorial, it had been possible for homo sapiens to walk, run, swim and climb... but never to fly properly without the use of an engine or a machine. Yet it could be done in dreams... it could happen beyond reality. In his present condition, there was no need for him to concern himself with controls, fuel, altitude, speed, or landing. Human flight in the mind easily overcame such tiresome troublesome trivialities. He felt light as a feather as he cruised above the clouds within the realm of utopia. He wished the flight could continue for ever to enjoy the sensation indefinitely but like all good and bad things it had to come to an end.

When he awoke in the morning, he was bathed in perspiration as though he had been flying all night. Weariness almost overcame him... holding him in the vice-like grip of obsession. Man could fly! It was a matter of translating dreams into reality... that was all. Almost certainly, man had once dreamt he could swim. The Doubting Thomases at that time scoffed at the idea claiming that a person would drown if he tried to emulate fish. And look what happened! Someone translated dreams into reality and man discovered he could swim. The same applied to flight. It needed confidence and the right approach to be able to do so. Critics would claim that if God had wanted man to fly he would have endowed him with wings. Well man didn’t have gills yet he was able to swim. Others had often stated that man’s shape was all wrong for flight. But even that argument was flawed. Scientists had proved it was impossible for the humble bee to fly because of its shape, weight, and the smallness of its wings. Yet bees were in flight all over the world. They had translated dreams into reality!

Geraint Tulley was a Welshman by birth. For some unknown reason he had acquired the nickname of Ginty. He was a thin, scrawny young man only five feet four inches high, with a sharp nose, beady eyes and a face not unlike that of a bird. He ate very little and weighed only six-and-a-half stone on his twentieth birthday. He knew nothing of his parents, having been left on someone’s doorstep when he was one day old, and he lived alone in a small rented room. Listless, bored and unhappy, he often dreamed he was flying and thought of nothing else. Flying on his own account, with his own wings, had overcome all reason... it was a total obsession. Nothing else in the world mattered. And why should it? Flying by himself was all he wanted to do. Naturally, people with strange obsessions often drew attention to themselves from cruel or jealous people. Consequently, he became the butt of many jokes and was treated badly by those who regarded him as a freak. At the Royal Oak inn that evening, Tulley was joined by his two friends. As they sat drinking together, Tom Chirk and Will Cardrew became strongly emotive about the local football cup-tie that weekend until falling silent to imbibe more ale. Until then, Tulley hadn’t spoken. He had stared at his glass of beer with a doleful expression on his face, appearing to be a million miles away. Now, in the short silence which prevailed, there was the opportunity for him to say his piece.

‘I can fly,’ he said simply, without looking at either of his mates.

‘What?’ spluttered Chirk, as the ale went down the wrong way. ‘What did you say?’

‘I can fly,’ repeated Tolley. ‘I can fly like a bird.’

There was a long pause as his two friends glanced at each other with confusion and an element of concern. They believed he was referring to a holiday abroad whereby he would fly there in an aeroplane..

‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Cardrew, keeping his voice on an even keel.

I can fly. At least I’ll be able to shortly. In a couple of weeks time at the most.’

‘I see,’ continued his friend. ‘Do you mean you’re taking a holiday somewhere abroad?’

‘Oh, no. I mean I can fly in the sky by myself.’

‘Where are you going to fly to?’ asked Chirk, puzzled by his friend’s declaration.

‘Oh, nowhere in particular yet. At present it’s only in my dreams. But I know I can do it. I know I can fly.’

‘In your dreams?’ Tom Chirk stared at him in amazement. ‘That’s where you’ve flown, is it?.’ His comment was rhetoric and remained as such.

‘It was wonderful,’ continued the Welshman. He focussed on the glass of beer in front of him with his eyes dilated, still appearing to be living in another world. ‘Wonderful! I was up there high in the clouds. High up where God’s Heaven begins. I could fly... I could touch the sky!’

His two friends stared at each other with alarm. ‘I think it’s time to get another round of drinks,’ suggested Chirk. ‘It’s your turn to pay, Will. I’ll help you carry them back.’

They went to the bar and faced each other seriously.

‘Do you think he’s flipped?’ asked Cardrew. ‘Too much stress at work perhaps. I mean he’s been under pressure in Parts Department for about three months now. Maybe it’s getting to him.’

‘I dunno,’ replied Chirk, shrugging his shoulders as if a chill had run down his spine. ‘When he talks like that he gives me the creeps!’

‘Maybe he ought to see a doctor... or a psychiatrist,’ suggested Cardrew. ‘I mean, he can talk to us like that because we’re his friends, but what will other people say when he tells them?’

‘They’ll think he’s nuts!’ returned his friend. ‘Let’s see what happens and make up our minds later.’

They collected three pints of beer and returned to the table. ‘Everything all right, Ginty?’ asked Chirk amiably, as they sat down.

‘Fine!’ replied Tulley quietly. ‘Fine!’

‘Tell us more about this flying lark,’ advanced Cardrew, trying to determine whether he had missed something in the interpretation.

‘I’m going to fly like a bird,’ explained the Welshman. ‘At present it’s only in my dreams but it won’t be long before I’ll be flying like a bird. Not long. You wait and see!’

Cardrew stared at him long and hard. ‘And this is what you want to do more than anything else in the world?’

The expression on Ginty’s face didn’t change. ‘Of course. There’s nothing more I want to do in the whole wide world. My life depends on it. I’m desperate to be able to fly like a bird.’

‘You’re aware that many people in the past believed they could fly,’ pointed out Chirk freely. ‘All their attempts ended in disaster.’

‘I know that but you have to admit that most of them wanted to create a machine which would fly. That’s not what I want. If you go back to Greek mythology, you’ll find that the inventor, Daedalus, made a pair of wings for himself and Icarus, his son, to escape from their enemies in Cyprus. The story goes that Icarus flew too close to the sun which melted the wax by which his wings were attached.’

‘But that’s mythology,’ reasoned Cardrew, in a vain attempt to get his friend to see sense.

‘Most myths emerge from truth,’ riposted Tulley. ‘Take the centaurs, for example. Half man, half horse. A ridiculous myth... there are no such things... never were. Yet not so! Back in those days no one had every seen a man riding a horse. So when men on horseback appeared on the horizon, people trembled in fear believing they were joined together as one being. Daedalus invented the wheel. I think he cracked the problem of flying too. But when the wings of Icarus fell away and the boy was drowned in the sea, he kept his secret to himself. Oliver of Malmesbury, an eleventh-century Benedictine monk was skilled in mechanical contrivances. He was the next one to try it. He made a pair of wings, fastened them to his hands and feet and leapt from a lofty tower. Well, he knew nothing about flight really. Poor man!’

‘I know someone who can help you,’ ventured Chirk helpfully. ‘He’s an expert on birds and bird flight.’

‘Really!’ exclaimed Ginty enthusiastically. ‘I’d like to meet him if that’s possible.’

‘I’ll set it up for you,’ returned Chirk. ‘His name is Harold Bridges.’

When Tulley went to see Bridges, he was shown to a large ostentatious study. Long, tall shelves endowed with books, many of which were first editions on bird life, used up two full walls of the room. Elsewhere reproduction furniture of a very high standard embellished the office, while numerous stuffed birds of all kinds were exhibited on shelves, pedestals and under glass.

‘Tom Chirk tells me you’re an expert on bird-flight,’ began the Welshman, after seating himself in a comfortable chair.

Bridges scanned the visitor’s face from behind his desk, staring at him over his spectacles. ‘You telephoned to say you wanted to fly... of your own accord. I would have thought it more appropriate for you to approach someone who knows about aeroplane flight, hang-gliding or microlite flight.’

Tulley stared at him coldly. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘I thought it was obvious. Man will never be able to fly of his own accord. My field is the flight of birds. Because of that I can prove man will never be able to fly.’

‘All right,’ challenged Ginty. ‘Prove it!’

Bridges stared at him strangely. He never normally suffered fools and the man who came to see him was beginning to irritate him. He had already stated the obvious... that man could never fly. Now he was being asked to prove it. It was an insult. ‘For a start,’ he began arrogantly, ‘flying birds have breastbones formed like the keels of ships to which the muscles that raise and lower the wings are attached. There are three types of feathers, namely, clothing, decorative and flying feathers. Flying feathers are constructed so that the air, to some extent, passes through them when the wing is raised. The feather particles close, like so many trap-doors, as the wing is lowered for the power stroke. Human-beings aren’t constructed in that way, nor do they have feathers capable of such action.’

‘Perhaps not,’ returned Tulley, ‘but neither do aeroplanes or helicopters.’

Bridges snorted angrily. The insolent man had become a real challenge. ‘Very well,’ he went on, ‘I’ll offer you some more statistics to convince you. A bird’s body is extremely light. In fact it’s as light as can be. The human body is heavy. A bird has large lungs which it fills with air and there are air-spaces in its body as well. For example, it has air in its bones to make it lighter. The shape of a bird’s body is sharp in front and gently curved behind... extremely well-suited for flight. It’s feathers are beautifully oiled so that water can’t stick to them. It’s muscles are enormous in proportion to the size and weight of the whole bird, especially arranged in relation to the wings in order to give them more power. In particular, the legs are of no use in flight and they’re small and light. Our legs are long and heavy. When you weigh up such facts, you’ll realise it’s impossible for a human-being to fly.’

The Welshman looked at him with a wry expression on his face. ‘I’m sure they once said that about swimming. You see, Mr. Bridges, the problems of swimming and flying are the same in principle. The body is heavier than the water or the air around it. In both cases, the problem is to prevent it from sinking.’

The bird expert stared at him and shook his head in disbelief. ‘You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said, have you?’ he chided.

‘I’m listening intently,’ replied Tulley, although he could see only one side of the argument.

‘But there’s one other matter which should settle it for you,’ continued Bridges, refusing to concede. ‘One you’ve never thought of.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Tulley took a note-pad from his pocket and began jotting down the relevant points set out by the expert. ‘What might that be?’

‘Temperature and the human pulse.’

Ginty looked up at him with a puzzled expression on his face. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘What have they got to do with it?’

‘It’s very cold up there. How long do you think you could stay aloft in such cold temperatures?’

Tulley refused to be proved wrong. ‘People with hang- gliders do it!’

Only for short periods.’

‘Well, in that case, I’ll fly for short periods only. If it gets too cold I’ll land somewhere. It’s no big deal.’

‘Do you know that birds are hot-blooded? Their temperatures runs from a hundred degrees in the gull to a hundred-and-twelve in the swallow. Man’s temperature is only ninety-eight point four. Anything over a hundred degrees becomes dangerous. And then there’s the pulse rate. A bird’s pulse beats at a hundred-and-twenty to the minute when it’s at rest. But its heart will beat so rapidly at the end of a flight so as to make it impossible to count the pulsations. The human pulse averages seventy-two beats a minute.’

The Welshman continued jotting down the facts as fast as he could.

‘And what about speeds?’ continued Bridges contemptuously. ‘Swifts normally fly at seventy miles an hour but can reach a hundred. Swallows range between thirty-four and thirty-eight. Ravens, crows, rooks, magpies, and the like between thirty-one and forty-five. Most other birds fly between twenty and thirty-seven miles an hour. What speed do you consider you might be able to do?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not concerned with speed.’

‘Well you ought to. It’s an important factor. For example, many birds die when crossing large stretches of water. Imagine flying across three thousand miles of Atlantic non-stop at forty miles an hour. That would take seventy-five hours of continuous flying. Just over three days. I think you need to think the idea through more carefully!’

Tulley stared at him pitifully. ‘You’re jealous because I can fly and you can’t, aren’t you!’ he accused.

The bird expert stared at him in bewilderment. His mouth opened and closed as if to speak but nothing emerged. His visitor rose and went to the door. ‘Well, all I can say is that I’m sorry for you, Mr. Bridges. You may know an awful lot about birds but you have no idea how to fly.’ With that, he left the room and closed the door firmly behind him. Outside, he paused for a moment and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Mind you,’ he muttered to himself, ‘there’s one thing he has which relates to birds... and that’s a bird-brain!’

Tom Chirk and Will Cardrew became even more concerned about their friend two days later. Tulley had missed work on two consecutive occasions without ringing his employer to say whether he was sick, taking a short holiday, or was absent for some other reason. After work at the end of the second day, they went to his home to find out what was wrong.

‘You’ve missed two days work,’ explained Tom with concern. ‘We wondered what happened to you.’

‘You didn’t ring in to say you were sick,’ added Cardrew.

‘I’m busy,’ returned Ginty, in a casual manner. ‘Very busy. You see, I’ll be able to fly like a bird shortly so I won’t need the job any more.’

‘But if you fly and don’t work,’ rattled Chirk, considering the man had lost his senses, ‘how will you be able to afford to buy food?’

The bird man laughed easily. ‘I shall eat like a bird, of course. Berries. Vegetables. Lots of small stuff. I must reduce weight. I have to make sure my legs get thinner. Look, you don’t have to worry about me. I’ll survive.’

‘So that’s it then,’ concluded Cardrew, tiring of the nonsense. ‘You’re not coming back to work and soon you’ll be off. Where to?’

Tulley shrugged his shoulders. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll cross to Europe, or fly to the United States.’ His face broke into a grin and he made a noise which sounded familiarly like a bird twittering. ‘There are distinct advantages with self-perpetuated flight. I mean, I won’t have to go through Customs or anything like that.’

Cardrew walked to the door, wishing to end his association with the affair but Chirk still felt some sympathy for their mutual friend. ‘Is there anything you want us to do?’ he asked amiably, willing to help.

‘No thanks,’ came the reply. ‘I’ve got it all set up. In a few days’ time I’ll be gone for ever. But you’ve been real good buddies to me. I’d like to see you once more before I go. Is that okay with the pair of you?’

‘Sure. Sure,’ confirmed Cardrew insincerely, and the two men left the premises extremely concerned about the welfare of their friend.

‘I think we’ve got to get him to a psychiatrist,’ suggested