Fly Boy Joe

Sun beams of orange, citrus hues dance through the glass of the dining room window. Seven-year-old Joe sits fixated, looking outward at the soothingly blue expanse.

Perched on a chairs edge he dines on a delicious meal of fish fingers, chips and alphabetti spaghetti. A red and yellow cape draped gently across his shoulders, a pair of bright green swimming goggles, pressing tight circles around his eyes.

Joe stares up grinning widely. A mouth full of food, and a mind filled with dreams. Fuelled dreams of whooshing and souring across that big blue freedom.

“One day, that will be me dad,” says Joe gleefully, pointing up at a passing jumbo jet.

His tall, stocky father chuckles, kissing Joes soft, golden hair and replying, “OK fly boy, Florida tomorrow, we can start with that eh”.

Joes thoughts transcend to being high above the clouds, looking out from the aeroplane window. The blazing sun shedding gold across rolling tops of a white, fluffed, cotton wool blanket.

“I’ll be in the middle,” says Joe, looking at his father. “I’ll be in the middle, you on the outside and mum by the window, she loves the window seat.”

Joes father places a weathered yet strong hand upon joe’s head. He smiles, winks and pats him softly with just the tips of his fingers. Brushing his hand down past his ear, and away across his soft, delicate cheek.

Joe reaches to hold his father’s arm in place, but misses the wanted opportunity. The rough, worked skin gliding through the tenderness of his own palms with pensive consideration.

Sitting cross legged on his hard-sprung bed, the cold steely head bars dig into joes delicate and fragile back. The stark, plain whiteness of the bed sheets, taking hope from the world with their bland nothingness. So colourless, harsh and blocked.

He picks at the buttons of a red and blue checked waistcoat, worn by Parker, his now dishevelled and soiled teddy bear. Looking downward, tears trickle steadily from joe’s cheeks, dripping onto his belly. Salty streams of dreams, passing terminally into the ether of nowhere, for no-body to feel.

Joe wakes at 3am, shook to life by his mother. Taking that first conscious breath, breathing in scented whisps of sweet oranges and rose filled gardens. A special occasion scent. One for Christmas, birthdays and days like today.

Snug under a soft, warm duvet, cocooned and blissfully dosey, Joe turns to look out from the bedroom window. The moonlight pours through the thin Superman themed curtains, silhouetting each little figure in powerful flight.

With a widely lit smile, Joe peels back the duvet, fully dressed and ready to go.

Grabbing his brimming rucksack from the floor, he races for the stairs. Shoes on, hopping and skipping a beat, out the front door to his father, who’s busy at work, packing the car.

“Pop your bag in the back Joe,” says his dad, “Go get your mum, we’re ready for the off.”

The dream of take-off a burgeoning reality, Joes belly fills with excitement, wonder and a pure, happiness that only a child can understand. Something so brand new, so desired and fantastical.

“I won’t be sleeping until we’re there dad” exclaims Joe, clutching onto Parker, his crisp and smartly dressed teddy bear.

“Ok my boy, let’s get on our way,” replies his father, closing the car boot and climbing into the driver’s seat.

Joe, and his parents pull off the drive and away from their home, on route to London Heathrow for the adventure of all adventures. A flight across the Atlantic with a Disneyland cherry, on a whipped cream topping.

“What is it that you want Joe?” Says Debbie, in a delicately soft, and compassionate voice. Sitting on his white hospital bed, cross legged and sobbing, Joe, silently picks away at the buttons of his beloved, dirtied and torn teddy bear. The red and yellow cape, laying scrunched up on the coldness of the glossy hospital floor. Joe says nothing, offering no reply…

The flashing blue lights could be seen for miles across the sparseness of Salisbury plains. Glass shards strewn across a skid marked carriageway, the smell of fuel drifting across the night air. Moans and screams carrying on a crisp and deathly winters wind. A dreamless man, drunk on emptiness had drifted away from his happy place and slept his way into stealing their lives. Eight gone…

“Gone where!? …Gone WHERE!? GONE WHERE!?” Screamed Joe, held tightly by Debbie as tears rolled from his eyes, inconsolable and shattered into as many pieces as the glass and steely wreckage.

A week had passed. Joes wounds had crevassed into a densely scarred wasteland; numbed, silent, and protected. Parker held in his arms, held tight against the flesh of his delicate chest. Offering just a brushed trickle of love, a token of suggested feeling.

“What do you want Joe?” Said his counsellor Debbie, “We need to know who you want to go to…”

Laying on his side, curled foetally, distressed and fractured, Joe grips his bear tightly. Replying with a mouse like quietness…

“I just wanna fly away… I wanna fly home… home to my mum and dad.”

Tears of salted waterfalls pool into the cotton sheets. Memories saturated into an unfamiliar scene of strangers and facts.

Twelve years passed with pain layered on a scarred and healing heart. Five more years with a fight to breathe, resurface and arrive.

Joes aunt cheers with elation, as the crowd roars and the marching band plays. A precession of uniformed officers, newly graduated and highly polished, march passed the stands.

“EYES…RIGHT!” Yelled the lead officer.

All recruits turning their heads with a salute, as they march on by the hundred-plus loved ones. Joes aunt, dressed for royalty, claps with a beating might, beaming with pride, smiling and ecstatic at their coupled victory. Their joint achievement, survival and trudge towards unchained freedom.

The genius of Joe became unrivalled in the world of aviation. A man seen to be connected to the sky. A machine reliant bird, winged in spirit, ghosted to his own being.

Fifteen thousand flying hours down. All under the watchful gaze of a worn-out photograph, taped to the cockpit control panel.

The image of ‘mum and dad’, present on every sortie, every stunt show, and every test flight performed.

A marriage to an incredible woman, Emily-Grace. A person of calming warmth and gentile charm. Brunette hair of mid-back waves, and eyes of a sparkled, rich-sky-blue.

Two children birthed, a boy and a girl. Jack now 7 years of age, and Masie just 5, but often fighting to be older. Toys of aeroplanes, helicopters and space ships fill the family home. Often rode on by dollies, much to little Jacks bitter disdain.

The ticking clock passed as always it does. Joe sits, buckled tightly into his seat, pondering his pilot years as the countdown sounds off, 10, 9, 8, 7…

Rattling through the stratosphere, a contemplative mind runs, tapped by the universal conduit.

“From great pain comes the greatest of achievement. To suffer is to learn, the reality unknown, the trophy unseen. To lose is to win… To lose is to win.

Little Jack sits at the dining room table, wearing a bright red and yellow cape, found in an earlier attic-space treasure hunt.

Dining on a fantastic meal of fish fingers, chips and peas, he stares up at the daylit face of the man in the moon.

In wonder, he dreams of the love for his father and their next big adventure, whilst shovelling a loaded fork of delicious splendour into his mouth.

“One day dad, we can both fly along Saturn’s rings, eating cheese from the moon and playing space football with meteorites! We can fly where the angels are, maybe we’ll find Nanny and Grandad living on one of the stars… I’ve seen where they are, I’ll show it to you! They told me how proud they are, they’re always watching. They’re with you now, to bring you home safe. They’re with you always and have been since the beginning. My amazing, fantastic dad.”