Wind Wizard

It was an ordinary class field trip, a hike through the mountains for biology and history. Little Benji was horsing around with little Nola, on a small trail near the top of a waterfall. Little Nola accidentally made Benji lose his footing. Benji fell.

Benji woke up in a hospital bed. His parents were there. The nurse said that he was the first person in the county to survive a fall from that high up.

That night, Benji dreams of the water fall. He dreams that the reason why he lived was because the air around him cradled him like a pair of gentle arms.

Two years later, Benji attempts to beat Brock Lee (his parents had a horrible sense of humor) at a swing jumping competition. The entire class is gathered around the swing set. Tammy Turnly is taking measurements with measuring tape.

Brock jumps first. He almost makes it all the way to the pavement. The children gasp in awe. Benji ignores the sea of murmurs and attempts to concentrate. He lets himself relax completely. His entire being becomes the ebbing force of the swing as it moves down and back and up. His hair is a fiery black flurry around his face.

He flings himself into the air. The air feels like water to him and it propels him upwards and outwards, over Brock Lee’s boggled face, past the four square lines, and onto the basketball court. Benji can hear the cheering children and can feel them running up to him, but he is preoccupied. He has latched onto something incredible and he doesn’t want to lose it. It feels like that moment during a dream when you realize you are dreaming. You know that if you can just hold on to that knowledge you will be all powerful in that sleeping world. But it is hard to hold onto, easy to forget.

Benji runs toward the wall ball wall. He comes at it from an angle, jumps, feels his feet scrape against it as he gains momentum, jumps off of the top corner with all of his might and glides into the wind. Benji flies.

Benji spends every hour of every day of every week of every month of the next year mastering his abilities. He learns run with incredible speed. He learns to control pressure and temperature. He learns how to hold solid forms with nothing but thick air. Benji becomes a master of wind energy. He powers entire cities. He travels the world. Benji is the wind wizard.

Falling

Welcome back to the dream theatre, a sign buzzes at you in neon light. You travel through the labyrinth of corridors once again, eventually you arrive in an unfamiliar section of the theater. You are now sitting in the under dome. The credits are on the screen as one would expect. Music plays quietly in the background. The man sitting next to you has glasses that you cannot see through, because they chronically reflect the light. The woman in front of you has elaborate hair.

The lights dim. it is time for the feature presentation. The floor opens up. You watch your feet dangling above a giant hole. There is no seat belt on your chair. There is a jerk and a clank. There is another. There is a slow metallic creak. You cling to your chair. A shiver runs up your spine. You know what it is coming. The chairs fall. The ceiling recedes. The walls of the hall blur upwards as the theater seating continues to plummet. You can’t breath. Someone who can, screams. Your eyes stick to your dangling feet. There is no wind rushing into your face. You hear spasmodic laughter from the man with the glasses. You unstick your eyes to see him smiling behind his glasses. His teeth are sharp. He turns to stare at you while he laughs. Disquiet churns your stomach.

The fall enters into darkness. The man’s glowing glasses and sharp teeth fade to black. Somebody in the audience is moaning painfully. The man next to you appears. His face is lit red from bellow. It looks as if the light in his glasses is dancing. When you look away you can still feel him staring. Far below your dangling feet, red light swims. It slowly grows larger. You hear a sound like thunder, distant at first and then nearer. It is the sound of the flames that you are falling toward. For a moment, everything is hot and red, then the fire is above you. A malevolent sun in a pitch black sky.

The man with the glasses is no longer next to you. Strange patterns of white, blue, and purple light appear on the walls. They create lines that spin around the audience, or waves that slowly drift from side to side as the audience continues to drift endlessly, or large pulsing and oscillating shapes that dance and twirl erratically. The lights start to become more ordered and yellow. They begin to slow. Before you realize what has happened, you find yourself stopped, in the theatre, as if nothing has happened. You begin to wonder if it might all have been some trick of the eye.

In the corridors leading back to the lobby, you think you notice the man with the glasses walking into a restroom. You look down the hallway behind you. A strange ripple comes toward you as if you are in the middle of a slinky or an esophagus. The ground shifts under you as it passes and it feels like a wave pool in a water park. You watch the ripple pass around a corner in the corridor. You realize that you don’t quite remember how to leave the dream theater. There is no glowing exit sign to be seen. There is only the faint flicker of an abandoned snack bar. The lump in your stomach is not the sensation of hunger.