Skywalkers

         As the glittering ashes lit up the years in her eyes, her age melted away.

         “We called Them Skywalkers,” she told me shyly. “The important men who liked to believe they were better than They were had a different, much sillier name for Them. But we, the ones with dirt on our socks and scabs on our knees, we called Them Skywalkers. And each one of us were humble enough to dream that one day we would be just like Them.”

         Zephy was her name. Not her given name, but the name that time had used to blot out the one on her long-lost birth certificate.

         “My friends,” she told me as she picked at her fingernails, “wanted me to be called ‘Zephyr.’ But that would mean I was like the Skywalkers.” She looked into the fire as bits of fingernail fell from her now bloody fingertips. “I’m much too clumsy to claim the grace of anything like Them. So I told my friends to call me Zephy instead. Clever, don’t you think? Indicative of the breeze that would make me a creature of the air, but imbecilic enough to keep my knees on the gravel roads.” I reached out and took her hand in mine, ignoring the mess that would smear onto my gloves with the contact. She started at the touch. She was surprised to see me still beside her�"most would have left her by then. Most, in fact, would never have approached her in the first place.

         “Would you like a fireplace and a cup of tea, Zephy?” I asked quietly. Her gray eyes glistened with tears. She looked down, embarrassed, and stared at our linked hands for a moment. She lifted her other arm and let it hover over ours, hesitating to move closer. Eventually, she pecked the back of my gloved hand with a few grateful pats and lifted her eyes to meet my face again.

         “I think I’d rather prefer some company, if you don’t mind,” she whispered. “A cup of tea will disappear far too quickly and even the best of fireplaces can’t hold a spark forever, but a story,” she looked back into the glowing flames, “a story will last until the end of time.” Her eyes flickered to mine again, and I felt her fragile fingers curl delicately around my hand, checking furtively if I was a trick of the embers. I nodded to her with a gentle smile and begged her to continue with a glint of my eye. Storytellers have a knack for that, you know. For people so utterly in love with language, we can be the best ones at communicating without a word.

         “I’d watch Them outside of my bedroom window every night. Their wings made the most lovely pearl lighting when they were kissed by a moonbeam.” She chuckled. “That’s what my mother used to call it�"‘kissed by a moonbeam.’ ‘You know, Zephy, the sun shines on everyone all at once�"even sunsets touch too many people�"but the moon only says hello to the lucky few still awake to receive its kiss.’ My mother was a writer. And she never told me to go to sleep. I’d watch her shadow slip past my open door, and I’d know that she saw me sitting on my window sill, but she never told me that it was too late or too cold or too strange to sit by my window in the dead of night and watch the Skywalkers dance with the moon.

         “We called Them Skywalkers, but mostly, They didn’t walk. They danced.” Her wide smile sparkled in the light of the fire as she remembered. “And why wouldn’t They? They had earned wings, become creatures of the air, gotten away from the gravel roads that had muddied Their socks and scraped up Their knees. They had every reason to dance. Every reason in the world,” she murmured. She looked up then, past the fire, past the tops of the crowded buildings around us, past even the clouds. She looked up and she let out a very quiet, mournful breath. Her next words came through weakly resisted tears. “You never see Them anymore. I think it’s because so few of us ever become Skywalkers anymore. Instead, we build cities and fall in love with businesses and we forget all about the possibility of a life with the moon.” She waved her hand frustratedly at the dripping charcoal clouds above our heads. “They can’t stand all this soot and sourness. You’ll never see a Skywalker above a city, no sir, you won’t. You have to get out to the country, out to where I used to live, out where stars get to whisper to trees and trees get to sing to breezes and breezes get to giggle with little girls on plaid picnic blankets. That’s where They stay.” She paused and looked at me slyly. “They like looking down, did you know that?

         “Skywalkers have an affinity for us Streetfeet. Just like we have an affinity for Them. It’s in our blood. We used to be just alike, but then They rose up. So you see, we look up to reach forward, to believe in higher endings. They look down to remember, to stay humble with the memory of their terrestrial beginnings. My mother used to tell me They especially liked the Streetfeet whose heads were already in the clouds with Them.” She laughed. “And if any little girl had a brain in the atmosphere, it was me. Every day at school I would draw wings instead of graphs, and then at night I would barely eat a bite of supper so that I could catch the Skywalkers dance with the moon.

         “I met one, too. His name was Astrum. He was an odd Skywalker, just like I was an odd Streetfoot. I was always looking up and he was always looking down and one night he saw me and I saw him and I waved and he-” her breath flew away from her then in an enchanting little gasp, “he came down to say hello. He asked me when I planned to join him and the moon.” Her eyes glistened with tears. “I told him that I couldn’t.” She looked at me and let a tear fall as my eyes asked the question. She patted her scrawny knee with a patient hand. “It’s these legs of mine,” she told me. “Never walked a day in my life. Let me ask you, have you ever seen a crippled Skywalker?” She shook her head before I could, and looked down to her useless legs. “No, but I imagine you haven’t see too many of Them, have you? Well, I can be the one to tell you, because I spent an entire childhood watching Them�"They walk and They dance. They hardly even use Their wings. The wings are really only symbols, you know. Just badges for Their shoulder blades, meant to glow pearl in moonlight and make little girls with broken legs dream harder than any little girls with worn out shoes. That’s what makes Them so impossibly beautiful, really. They live exactly as we do�"They build homes and They find families and They dine and They dance and They walk and They laugh and They cry, just like us, just like the creatures They used to be. But They do it all with the sun and the moon. Their socks will never be muddy and Their knees will never be bloody. That’s the beauty of Them. They found life and They made it ethereal.

         “Now, I know I’ll never earn my wings�"I’ll never have the legs to help me walk in any of Their footsteps�"but would you like to know a secret?” She leaned in close, and I did the same. Her breath was cold and smelled like spring blossoms. “I’ve made my life ethereal, even without wings.” She paused then, watched thoughts swirl in my eyes. “I know you don’t believe me very quickly,” she continued. “I know you see me hunched in front of a garbage can fire with my silly useless legs propped up on a rusted old wheelchair, and I know you must think that I’m a rather interesting but rather mistaken old woman who talk of myths like memories.” Her small fingers curled around my hand again�"so soft and yet so urgent. “But I told Astrum the night he said hello that if I could never be a Skywalker, I would make a hundred of them. I would be the reason that Streetfeet earned wings. I would see a hundred ascensions before I die, and I would enjoy each and every one of them as if the risen one were me.

         “That’s why I came here.” She sighed slowly and patted her mangled knee again, as if she were comforting a disappointed child. She cocked her head at the ashes spinning above the fire. “I haven’t quite gotten one yet.” She smiled bashfully at me and quickly dropped her gaze again. “I forgot that Streetfeet in the city are usually content with dirt on their socks. But I haven’t given up. I know how amazing it will be to rise up and earn wings. I’ve dreamt about it so many times that I feel as if I’ve already lived it, and it’s too lovely to forget about. It’s something this entire city should experience, and I’m going to live to see it happen.” Her gray eyes shone with love and hope as they searched the fire. “You can be the first,” she told me in a gentle whisper. She met my surprised gaze with a wonderful ferocity and conviction. “You’ve already shown yourself to have a celestial kindness. No one else has taken the time to talk to a nervous old woman in a wheelchair. And I know a storyteller when I see one.” Her words began to run together with excitement, and her eyes watered with the realization. “If you share my story, if you spread the word about Skywalkers and the cripple who dreams of raising them, you’ll earn your wings for sure.” She placed her free hand on mine softly but refused to meet my eyes. “Just promise me one thing?” She took a few shaky breaths to gather the courage to continue. “When you earn your wings and rise up, will you allow me to be there with you? I’d like to know if it looks anything like what I’ve dreamt.”

         Yes, I’m writing this to share Zephy’s story, but I’m not looking for wings at the end of the manuscript.

         I’m writing this for Zephy, for the woman who has spent a childhood dreaming for something she couldn’t have and a lifetime trying to find someone else who could receive it. I’m writing this for a soul who will never begrudge the dirt on her socks or the scabs on her knees. I’m writing this for a heart that has flown�"despite her crippled street feet�"since she was a young girl drawing wings instead of graphs.

         I don’t know who distributes wings and appoints Skywalkers, but whoever You are, I’m writing this to You, for a dear friend of mine, who is still hunched in front of a garbage can fire on a rusted wheelchair, desperately searching for a soul to raise. She believes that she could never ascend�"she would never fit in with those of You who walk and dance�"but perhaps she can be an odd Skywalker, just like her friend Astrum. Perhaps she can be the first of You to use her wings as more than badges for her shoulder blades.

         She’s got a mind in the clouds and a heart for the heavens. She deserves wings more than any of us.

         And Zephy, if you ever read this, I hope you do it from a mile above these gravel roads. I hope you look down and see me staring up at you, and I hope you remember the little girl you used to be, and I hope you smile even brighter than you did the night you shared your heart with me. Your wings will be the most beautiful of all, I know.