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Flight “I don’t really know what you’re doing,” Tai said to her before she left the apartment that morning. She nodded silently, not knowing what to say, not looking at him. Instead, she continued clearing away the table and started washing last night’s dishes. She watched the water clear away yesterday’s grease, yesterday’s stains. She moistened the sponge and squeezed suds onto the plate she was working on, scrubbing slowly and deliberately. Tai’s voice became a distant radio buzzing in the back of her head as she worked. They had been arguing, their hateful words absorbed into the meatloaf and not into each other’s ears. She wiped the last bits off the plate, watching the rivulets of hot water rinse the remnants of yesterday’s fight down the drain… washing clean the porcelain slate. She looked up to see that Tai was still talking, his voice still buzzing in the background. “What is it that you want to do today?” he had asked, waiting for her to put away the last plate, for her to get ready. “Tai, I don’t think we should spend today together,” she had said. The first words emitted from her lips that day, and they parted ways, him to practice his guitar and write music, her to the park to watch the kite flyers. This had always pacified her nerves, reminding her of her father, who had taken her on Sunday treks to the park. There, she would watch the kites flying high above her, past her father’s looming frame. She still held onto the awe she felt when watching the kites zigzagging the skies, the wonder of those moments gripping onto her father’s finger with her hand, mesmerized by the colors and the whipping fabric. She held onto those images, those close fleeting moments with her father. The number of people flying kites began to dwindle; it had grown too windy and overcast for a good flight. Kaela’s eyes followed the twisting path of the green kite, whipping against the cold skies, waving hello to the other kites flurrying by. Her eyes twitched from the kaleidoscope of colors whirling around, causing her to blink instinctively. She turned her head slightly and caught the eye of the man maneuvering the green kite. He smiled at her and she flinched – his fingers almost losing hold of the cross between his hands. The man who had caught her eye and in doing so, nearly lost his kite, smiled sheepishly at her as he trod past her on the way out of the park, kite folded neatly to his side. The man had reminded her a little of her father. He had to have been in his thirties, his dark hair receding slightly. He wasn’t a tall man, but stoic and reserved. His big broad smile along with his absolute calm and control when handling his kite was familiar. She remembered staring in wonder and excitement, with absolute respect as he unfurled the kite and sent it flying. Her eyes would flutter around in search of the green kite that was his… theirs. She would run around in circles until it caught the wind and then stand reverently next to her father or lying full on her back on the grass while he maneuvered it, completely transfixed. Before he had passed away, he had promised her a ride in a hot air balloon. She was always terrified of heights, but trusted her father to protect her from all harm. He never got well enough to whisk her away. She never had the heart to complete the mission on her own. She began to circle the park since the kite flyers had dwindled away, the sky a gray ominous mass instead of the patchwork of colors it had been moments before. She walked the cement path deeper into the park, where she would run sometimes when the weather wasn’t as cold. She grew up here, in this park, between the giant globe, the ice skating rink, the tennis courts, the Hall of Science, Meadow Lake, and Shea Stadium. She remembered her first kiss behind Capcom’s Street Fighter II Champion Edition arcade game, hidden from prying, gossiping junior high school girls, on the way to the bathroom after clumsily holding hands on the ice skating rink. It was cold, his lips were chapped, and he lived half a world away – forty minutes including a bus transfer. He had dragon-punched his way into her Chun Li-kicking pre-teenage heart. Kaela saw him fifteen years later riding the F train to Forest Hills looking exactly the same, just a little taller. They shared weary smiles and small talk and parted ways, laughing to themselves later as they slowly remembered each other as awkward, shy twelve year-olds. She discovered after playing Grand Theft Auto, as the credits scrolled that he had transformed his video game playing abilities into programming skills. She continued walking through the park, past the lake where her father occasionally took her to watch the Dragon Boat races. The wind picked up and fat drops of rain plopped on her head. She made her way around the lake, out of the park and home. She arrived before Tai, and realized she hadn’t eaten anything all day. They had fallen into bed last night, exhausted, and left the remnants of last night’s dinner on the table. It was close enough to dinner so she started chopping some broccoli and garlic to steam, pulling out last night’s untouched pasta salad. She munched quietly on some carrots and reviewed last night’s events. Tai was angry. Kaela had quit her job without ever speaking about it, without consulting him. They were a team, after all. “Kay, I really don’t know what’s going on. You have to talk to me.” And on and on it went. Until she broke down and told him she had been miserable; she had always hated the job, her boss. Everything. Something just didn’t feel right anymore and she wasn’t happy. “No, I don’t know what it is I’ll be doing exactly,” she had told him. They had fought and worried and cried and fallen into a huddle on the bed, their dried, sticky tears forming a residue, sticking arm-to-arm, face-to-face. He came in just as she lifted the lid from the broccoli to check its tenderness. He had bought some groceries. Tai would also produce wooden dowels, red nylon, and a plastic handle to make a basic 12” X 12” diamond kite. “Everything’s going to turn out okay, Kaela.” “I know, Tai. I know.” A few weeks later they took the makeshift red kite into the park together away from the hard-core kite flyers and watched it flitter in the breeze. It got stuck an hour later amidst the trees, just out of arms reach. The man with the green kite helped them dislodge the tattered remnants and handed them back to Kaela half-laughing and with sadness in his eyes. “Green kite is better,” he said, “Sturdier!” He let her hold onto his hands over the cross, feeling the pressure of the wind between her fingers and his strong grip. And for a brief moment she was five again, running around her father’s legs, staring up into the sky, secure and happy, giggling and free. Years later, Kaela sat on a return flight from London, watching a video on kites – swirling, bright kites, flying and gliding, twisting and ready to crash-land. The camera followed one defeated kite, caught in a tree, hanging like a wrung towel wrapped between the branches. Other casualties of the windy day lay torn, like squeezed dry, pulpy oranges on the grass. The buzzing racket in her ears from her discman wouldn’t coincide with the images displayed on the screen before her, and Reykjavik lay right below, bright and green and cold, a beautiful icy silhouette. |