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Alexandra Seiler

Icarus Revisited

i. When you open the door to your apartment, your
first thought is that your father must have bought the
entire stock of the Yankee Candle three blocks down. The
kitchen is a nauseating mix of floral scents; there are
empty glass jars all over the counters, extracted wicks in a
careless pile on the windowsill. And there's Dad, leaning
against the counter, peering into the double-boiler sitting
on the stove, tapping the side of his glasses with his left
index finger, watching the colored wax melt into a muddy
syrup. There are rolls and rolls of copper wire in the sink,
and sketches scattered across the table. You peer at one:
lines, and shapes like wings, and scribbled equations.
There's a black garbage bag full of white feathers sitting
on your chair. The lightbulb goes off, the pieces falling
suddenly into place, and you wonder if the best solution
is, after all, running away.

You drop your school backpack on the floor. "Dad,"
you say, "what are you doing?" even though you know the
answer, and he looks up at you and grins, genius and
desperation in the crinkles around his eyes, and he says,
"We're going to fly."

ii. Dad does the test flight himself, a day after the
wings are completed. You go with him, up to your
apartment building's roof, help him buckle on the leather
harness holding up the wire-feathered frames. "I'll have
control of them the whole time," he tells you, "they'll
coordinate with my arm movements." He puts his hands
into the leather straps at the far end of each wing and
flexes his fingers before closing his fists around the straps.
He smiles. "What do you think?"

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