Flyers
Jun 22 '06
The Bottom Line Just roll with it.
I remember when the flying people first arrived. You can bet that we were all pretty upset at seeing folks just a-floatin’ through the air. And they all looked the same- dressed in some kind of black get-up. Near as we could tell, they weren’t using any machines and didn’t have wings of any kind. They’d just soar through the air, quietly and just high enough so that none of us could see what their faces looked like. Where they were going to or coming from, we never could tell.
It was getting more difficult every year to put up with the kids. Just keeping them in their seats was a dreadful task. All they wanted to do was look out the classroom window- not at the flying folks, mind you, since teens hardly took notice of them at all. No, what they were interested in was each other. They’d wave from the second floor to whoever happened to be in the parking lot, almost as if they’d never seen someone their own age. One day, I finally managed to corral them all back into their seats and when I glanced up at the window, what did I see? A line of greasy prints from where they’d all been pushing their unwashed foreheads up against the glass, with Stanley, the slowest of the bunch, using his finger to make happy faces in the residue.
On a sunny September afternoon, me and another teacher, Mr. Joe, watched a big one fly over the field behind the portables. He even seemed to be wearing a cape of some kind, and it lightly blew behind him. Not in a Superman kind of way, mind you- these figures held themselves stiff and vertical, and the effect was somehow both eerie and majestic. I was careful not to look for too long, though- doing so would sometimes burn your eyeballs and make you feel sick for days afterward.
As we got closer to Christmas break, the graffiti situation started to get out of hand. You couldn’t even use the p*sser without having to read the boasts and taunts of rival sets. This trend took a turn for the ghastly when some of the more disturbed g*ng b*ngers started smearing feces across the bathroom walls, in an effort to conceal whatever their foes had written. And then one day, something inexplicable happened that put a stop to all the brown-handed bathroom antics. While going in to clean up the latest mess left behind, a janitor discovered a most impressive mural by the farthest stall, one that could almost be described as a true work of art, were it not for the subject matter and materials employed. As the custodial worker fell to his knees and made the sign of the cross, he shifted his gaze away from a life-sized, impressively detailed depiction of the Nativity, rendered onto a tile wall in blood and human excrement. After that, no students were allowed into the bathrooms without an adult chaperone.
We had been seeing more and more of them as winter gave way to spring. As many as five sightings a day was not unusual, but some of us just never got used to the soundless journeys of those mysterious beings. The only time their presence created a disturbance was when one decided to simply stop in the middle of its flight and hover about fifty feet above the student parking lot. Cell phones ceased to work, all the lights in the building flickered on and off for several minutes, then everything went back to normal.
On the last day of the school year, our principal announced his retirement after thirty-seven years of service. When some of the teachers jokingly encouraged him to soldier on for another five, he broke out into a noticeable sweat and loosened up his collar. No, he remarked uneasily, that would be impossible- he just couldn’t stand to spend another day in a building where the desks moved around the rooms of their own accord and the urinals flushed themselves. And, he added, he was beginning to feel that slapping the dog sh*t out of students and their parents was about the only proper course of action. From across the crowded room, a colleague looked my way and delivered a wink, for she and I had often said the same.
And so the comings and goings of the flying ones continue to this day. Even us adults no longer find them spectacular or alarming, though it’s curious how law enforcement officials and other authority figures continue to deny their existence, even when one is floating by at a mere thirty feet above their heads. None of us would mind knowing a little more about them, but hell, I’d be happy to decipher the actions of the creatures I encounter on the ground.
Copyright 2006
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Member: Bryan Shultz
Location: Dallass, Texass
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