Page 108 - Herzlia HS Magazine 2021
P. 108
Wings
Man was not made to fly. Father’s harsh words echo in my
head in the quiet of the meadow, acid green grasses
coating the hills around me like moss.
The battered prototype before me is still creased with the
dents of my last failure. We rebuilt it slowly, carefully, but
the dim scars of previous crashes on the metal are never
truly erasable. Fresh diagrams are scrawled over the
weathered pages of my journal.
Will studies them now, crouching on his haunches beside
me, running his long fingers over my tight handwriting.
Loose pages flutter gently in the European breeze like
trapped butterflies.
I notice my father’s looping characters on the open page,
fading from years, seeming to wilt against Will’s scrutiny. It
means he has gone backwards, reviewing older
calculations. My father has not touched this journal in half a
decade, not since the last day I slammed the door of my
childhood home.
