Wings

By: Tessa Barratt

Joey was five years old.  He lived in a nice, four bedroomed house on the east coast of America.  His house was a thousand meters from cliffs  overlooking the vast blue ocean.  Joey loved to play outside with his father. Joey loved his father.

He idolized his father.  He hung on his every word, believed everything he said and did was right and he felt the utmost pride for him.  Joey was fortunate, as his father loved him very much and was careful not to be too hard on his son and tried his best to set a good example.  It was therefore very difficult for Joey to understand, that calm summer day in 1943, when his father sat him on his knee and told him he was going to war. 

 Joey frowned and looked intensely into his father’s eyes. His mother was standing further back, watching them sadly.

“What’s a war, daddy?” he asked.

Father sighed and paused, trying to think of the best words to use.

 “Well, Joey, it’s when…two or more countries have a big fight.  A bad man named Hitler has been attacking America’s friends in Europe with all his followers and it’s become so bad, that some Americans, like me, have been asked to help.  We’ve been asked to go away and help our friends fight the bad man.”

Joey blinked, wide-eyed and his parents feared he might cry.  After a lengthy pause, Joey choked: “Go away, daddy?”

Mother buried her face in her palms with a little cry and Father looked very grave.  Suddenly, though, he thought of a way to brighten the situation for Joey.

“Yes, son, I am going away east for a little while.  I’m going to be flying overseas!”

Joey’s face lit up.

“Flying?”

Father removed Joey lightly from his knee and stood up with a bright smile.

“Yes!  Daddy’s going to be flying a fighter plane, just like the one in your colouring book!”

“Really?” Joey exclaimed. “You’re gonna get wings, daddy!!”

 Father looked up and met his wife’s eyes.  She was smiling gently.

Joey hugged Father’s leg and buried his face in his long coat.  Father patted his back softly.

“Daddy’s going to get wings, that’s right.  And don’t you worry; daddy’s going to fly right back home soon.”

“Can I come with you?”

“No, son.  I need you to stay here and look after your mother.”

 Two weeks later, Father left for war.  Joey missed him terribly for the first few days and then suddenly became quiet and reserved, as if holding his breath in anticipation for his father’s return.  He became obsessed with flying.  He spent hours watching birds in the garden and collecting pictures of planes.  He stopped paying attention in class and occupied himself with drawing planes (often alongside his father).  One day, a classmate teased him about his drawings and he got onto his table, stood to his full height and jumped yelling: “I CAN fly!!”

He returned home with a few dark bruises and a letter from the teacher.

His mother was furious.

“Joey,” she said. “I want you to cut out this nonsense right now!”  

“It’s not nonsense!” Joey cried.  

His mother would hear no more of it.  She scolded him and took away his colouring books, warning him if he ever tried anything silly like that again, she’d take away his pictures too.  Joey burst into humiliated tears and ran to his room.  He lay awake that night and decided that the reason he couldn’t fly was because he was not flying ‘over seas’, like daddy.

 The following day Joey began a mission; a mission to find daddy.  He collected cardboard and paper and paint from the house, school and local scrap yard.  He took all of this into the shed, without his mother’s knowledge and there he set to work building a pair of wings.

 It took two weeks.  He used his pictures as a reference.  He painted them many bright colours and even attempted painting on the U.S. flag, but the colours ran into each other and the stars and stripes became a murky brown.  But he didn’t care.  Three cans of paint, four rolls of sticky tape and twelve big pieces of card and paper later, it was finished.

 The evening after he secretly completed his wings, he kissed his mother goodnight and went obediently to his room.  He did not sleep that night.  He planned to lie awake until the first rays of the sun lit the horizon.  He would fly at dawn.

 The house was very still and bathed in a gloomy, grey light.  He made his way down the wooden stairs, with pain-staking effort not to make any noise.  Quietly he unfastened the latch on the front door and silently stepped down into the dull light of the early morning.  He collected his wings from the shed and started to walk towards the sun.

Ten minutes later, he was at the cliff edge.  He stood silently gazing at the rising yellow bulb that was the sun.  Daddy told him that was the east.  He thrust his small arms through the loop he’d made for them and gripped the tips of the wings.  Below him, the crash of the waves forced an updraught, which ruffled his sandy blonde hair.

Joey took a few steps back, his gaze on the horizon never faltering.

“I’m coming daddy,” he whispered, ran and jumped.