FILTERS 7

FLIGHT

"Always." says Andrew.

They shake hands, they workout and talk. Other players arrive, subjecting Andrew to a chain of greetings and fresh introductions. He already knows the only other two who stick out, both in their final years, both destined for the draft. The agile running back Faars and the hulking safety Marques.

They go to breakfast.

Classes start. Andrew has a full slate, physics, chemistry, calculus.

Devaris often texts him, often knocks at his door, pulling him to gatherings with the other players and off-campus, to parties full of people Andrew couldn't care any less about talking to.

He likes talking to Emilia.

She often texts him.

They often meet and talk over her lunches in the complex cafe.

He takes her to dinner. He sees her, dark hair a mess around her shoulders, bangs low to her brow, above dark eyes, above high cheeks, above pink lips, a perfect bow.

They sit on his car. They talk. They kiss.

Dark figure touching light.

Andrew is obvious in the field.

Where he has known all others as defined by their absence–the void behind clothing, the slow radiation of body heat–his form is different. His is the luminescent center, the golden origin, the lens of relation, fundamental context for objects as he moves them. From the first day of his true gift, he knew himself apart from all else, and while he could move his clothing, his backpack as it hung from his shoulders, the phone in his pocket, he felt feedback when he tried to move himself. A vibration he could clearly interpret as not yet.

"So when?"

There have been few nights when he didn't prod the feeling. In his old bedroom, in his room at the beach or alone in hotel rooms his parents would pay for when athletics brought overnight stays. He would try it in different positions and different states of mind, the little attitudinal changes day to day. Always not yet.

Even now, with phone, wallet, keys, pen, unplugged lamp and baseball in an odd, slow orbit around him. He could go outside and do the same with parked cars, but still, not yet.

He pushes into the feedback.

"When?"

Clearly, as if spoken to him. Not yet.

"Why not?"

He pushes into the feeling until he feels all but physically knocked back.

It can kill you.

From the height? No, that isn't right. He wouldn't suddenly forget how to control himself unless he rose so high that he risked hypoxia, and he wouldn't do that. Could he lose the ability somewhere in the sky? He would rather die. What else could it be? He would move his body, same as a baseball, same as his father's truck, same as a shipping container. Simple, surely?

He thinks. He thinks.

Gentle ringing.

"If I am moving my body, I am using this on my body. I could crush my organs or shatter bones. I could do to myself what I did to the bear."

Yes.

He feels the change at once, mental and physical weight lifting as he rises into the air, but in his surprise he relinquishes control and falls onto his bed and bounces to the floor where his little satellites collapse on him from above, but he doesn't notice. He's already focusing, reaching for his brilliant center where now he finds no feedback, only his own excited apprehension as his grip surrounds his form and he is weightless again, objects rolling off of him except his phone, his body moving up and over his bed and falling onto it.

He sits up and silently roars in success, beating his fists and pounding his chest and rising again. He loses himself in it and does not return until his arm rings.

He jogs to his workout where he's almost frantic, his warm-ups intense, his every movement as hard and fast as ever. Gerome, his trainer, says "Hell yeah man, get at it." But his demeanor shifts as Andrew's ferocity persists in every set.

Bench. "Another fifty." The trainer checks his tablet and with hesitation adds the plates. Andrew feels no difference, his reps continue all the same.

Gerome asks "Are you okay? Something happen?"

"I feel great, really pumped today."

Gerome says "That's great, but you can't get hurt."

Andrew laughs, "When was the last time a player injured themselves working out?"

When this is met with silence Andrew says "Yeah, that's what I thought. Another fifty."

Gerome adds it. Andrew continues, no different. "Where do you get this from? Jesus."

"Gotta be ready."

He showers and jogs to class, but there's no chance he'll focus. His recorder is out, next to a notebook he doesn't expect to fill. The hall is large and newly remodeled and bright by hanging lights. Each row is a single long table almost the width of the room and blue like the sound panels on windowless white walls and he thinks if he could see the sky he couldn't stay. The class moves slowly and is unhelped by his absentmindedness and when his professor finishes he leaves immediately.

Marques finds him at a table and he remembers talking, just not what he said.

His afternoon is in a windowed lab, but there's balance in being on his feet.

He's out as quickly as before, jogging across campus. Through the plaza, past the main auditorium and the stadium, to his dorm, up the stairs and to the door with lock spinning and his hand hits the handle as it's already starting to open and the door shuts and he's in the air. The now-familiar weightlessness upon him, he moves in a hover, legs crossed, hands on his knees, relaxed. His pose is not static, he can move his arms and pivot, flip upside down and feign walking on the ceiling, no disorientation. The ceiling is down. But directional movement comes the same as anything else in the field.

8-foot ceilings and 500 square feet are not an ideal practice area. It was fine for a week, by the eighth day Andrew would rather be caught than be stuck another day in his dorm. No way around it.

Somewhere no one will see him.

Somewhere close to jog.

Somewhere he can rise quickly.

He has found trail cameras in the field before, little boxes in boxes, tiny components slightly brighter than their surroundings. Street cameras are obvious even outside the field. Two obstacles remain: planes and radar.

Planes are simple, he will be small and dark and he has two ways of seeing their approach.

Radar is also simple, unexpectedly so, a sudden certainty–You don't need to worry about radar–that he does not question for his excitement but he will return to when his head isn't in the clouds.

The many forests in the city are his candidates, and he examines each. One swath of conservation is ideal, with subdivisions to its north and south but uninterrupted verdance within. A short run takes him to the woods and he finds a spot where the fences are bowed from weathering and overgrowth, and when the road is clear he jumps into the brush. He pushes through branches and leaves until he feels he's far enough, and again checks his surroundings. No figures anywhere close and no cameras. There are no full towers in Gainesville, the stadium is the tallest large structure, and even if it were day and the sky were clear, someone on top of the stadium looking at this exact spot might still fail to see him, or fail to distinguish anything meaningful about his shape beyond an errant blur. He has no way to measure altitude, but with the stadium as reference he can make an estimate.

"I have to get that high, first."

He hesitates. His dorm practice has been useful, he's comfortable with movement, and he knows the field makes no distinction in height or distance, as he has before moved objects so far away or high above that his center was tiny when he would contrast the distance. No difference in being forty feet up in the trees or his fourth-floor dorm. He doesn't fear heights, but this is time for caution.

He rises, already so accustomed to weightlessness that he's relaxed, legs slightly bent and arms in a loose drift at his sides. He realizes he feels no wind, but still the rapid change in scenery is satisfying, and now looking just over the canopy he can see no lights except those of the stadium and a distant radio tower. He looks up, checking carefully for planes and when he sees none he appraises himself a final time.

"Rise until I'm high enough."

He launches.

He was prepared to force his ascent until he was certain of his invisibility, now he continues because he does not want to stop. The great dark mass of trees falling away as the city spreads until the cars are flecks of light and a thumb with arm outstretched covers most of the stadium. He soars, always keeping the city in view as he goes into a rise and fall, and now as natural as breathing he relinquishes his grasp, bringing weight and the feeling of wind back to his body and sending him into a dive that he repeats until he knows the sensation.

He again loses himself in it; returning only when he notices the darkness on the horizon lessen. He starts, seeing how far he is from campus, but the stadium is still obvious, and he soon finds where he started from. Again he holds himself in the trees, again checking for any who might see him.

He runs back to his apartment and changes. He should already be at the gym.

He wonders if he smells like the sky.

Gerome greets him near the door, "Morning, Andrew, not like you to be late."

"I was out on a run and lost track of time."

"Going to be too tired for weights?" asks Gerome, a knowing grin.

"Do I ever seem tired?"

"Don't know, can't tell with you. Do I?"

"No clue."

By the following evening he has a digital watch–long velcro straps, very secure–and black-tinted goggles branded for use in skydiving, though he leaves the latter behind. His routine is the same, he jogs to the forest, timing his arrival with an empty road, and makes his way through. Waiting in the canopy again, checking for aircraft again, and just before he rises he thinks he needs to find more places to launch from.

Weeks pass. A Thursday night, dinner with Emilia. She invites him to her apartment but he declines. His summer conditioning is complete, his classes have finished. August camp starts in ten days that are otherwise his to use. With the watch he has an idea of his speed: variable, seemingly as fast as he wants. He will easily reach Atlanta, as he has already taken a dead sprint west, far over the gulf, the lights of the coast small in the distance. Tonight he will go northwest, and he has studied the route and made notes of landmarks. A paracord compass wristband is next to his watch, and out of some sense of prudence he's added an insulated mask to go below the goggles.

The watch and compass help, but the only useful landmark is the Atlanta airport. He finds his suburb, and the area he planned to drop to. He lands and jogs a familiar route.

His father is in his office, there's heat from the small television. Andrew's up the stairs, through the mudroom, past the kitchen, knocking on his father's office door.

"Andrew? I didn't hear your car. . ." thoughts connect.

"I can fly."

James runs a hand over his scalp. "Are you hungry?"