on the up and up

And he entered the air. That was it. It was all a lot simpler than he had thought it would be. No spaceships. No rocket-booster packs or even superhuman powers. He just entered it. That was it. He laughed at his now seemingly ridiculous expectations that he had about it all – the kind of laugh he did when after spending a good ten minutes tearing apart the house looking for his car keys, cursing every motherfucking piece of furniture that always ran into him (and yes, I do mean ran into him, he did not and has never in his life run into a piece of furniture - coffee tables run into him) - swearing that someone must have hidden the keys, about to resign himself to being car-less, only to find them sitting right there on the kitchen counter where he always sets them, and where he had checked at least a good twelve times already. But, the thirteenth time is the charm, I guess. And, it was that type of laugh, the duh!-why-didn’t-I-see-the-motherfucking-keys-sitting-there type laugh, that he made when he realized the almost transparent simplicity of it all. He was a rocket man. Not a slightly overweight, decadent gay piano man – but, a motherfucking real live rocketman. Vague memories of elementary school teachers trying to let him in on the secret years ago. They kept on repeating all the time what he thought to be bullshit little affirmations intended to keep the lot of them down – to keep them from realizing the absurd futility of their situation - the fact that they would all grow up to work shit jobs for some shit of a person. And, so yeah, he was also a pessimist for a good period of time. How does a child become a pessimist though? It was not a matter of becoming. They just were, and still are. They’re naughty, violent, fucked-up little shits to begin with and dumb people always talk about their corruption. Fuck that shit, they are corrupt from the get-go – life is spent correcting and suppressing their corrupt nature.

And, maybe it was now, at the moment that he realized the utter joy of it all, that he had fully suppressed his corrupt nature. That he retreated from his earlier view that those elementary school teachers – the obviously closeted gay males and the always somewhat plump females attired in holiday sweaters and floor-length skirts – that maybe, they were not simply trying to mystify children into becoming a work force – a happy and docile proletariat. That these teachers actually knew what the fuck they were talking about. Those under appreciated, seemingly clueless people had it figured out all along way before our male protagonist. God, why the fuck can’t I take advice when it’s offered, he thought to himself, regretting that it had taken him so long to realize it. Wondering just how much further along he’d be mentally and spiritually, if only he could quit being such a dickhead and motherfucking quit being so goddamn reactionary to everyfuckingthing. He let their mantras again enter his consciousness, this time with an open mind towards their message(s). You can do anything you set your mind to. And countless other affirmations extolling the powers of one’s imagination – they all came back to him. He heard them all for the first time. His imagination was his only limits. He wanted to cry with happiness at this knowledge. The moisture came to his eyes and they even watered, but no teardrops fell, so technically, I guess we can not really refer to it as crying. But, you know the feeling: it was the a-ha type times a hundred. A fucking goddamn yes! - I see it! – I see how it all motherfucking works! And yet, if you were asked to explain it or to verbalize your feeling of near enlightenment – the feeling would be lost, or at least tempered by the embarrassment at your lack of verbosity. But whatever – this is the type of feeling where you know everything is, and is always going to be all right – and it’s not a feeling easily translatable into the narrow medium of language. These are feelings infinite, which overflow the definitely finite boundaries of language. And he, too, knew this.

For this reason, and also because he was too caught up in the moment to give a shit about such things, he did not try to verbalize his feelings. Rather, he just savored his flight. Closing his eyes, feeling the wind grace his skin with its touch, floating past Mars, waving at cosmonauts in passing spaceships, dodging the occasional asteroid, and finally getting it.