Confidences

Warning: Inflation / floating fiction. Not suitable for minors or people with helium allergies and fear of heights.

"I used to wish I could fly."

Sharon breathes the confession as a sigh, thickening the young night air about the terrace. The thin heat of the flagstones fades under her, and the failing birdsong brings a chill breeze from downriver. Overhead the sky is fathomless and inviting and for a moment she remembers being seven year old; standing on the edge of her father's shed with a blanket parachute; leaping and clutching at the void. How close had she come? Before books and school and career swept her away? She tells herself she doesn't regret it, really, but it hadn't been easy at the time. With anglo-chinese parents there was always the expectations, the wider family, the need to be serious.

"Ummm-huh? Really?"

Her friend Amelia rolls over on the nearby recliner. She has been naming the potted plant beside her and wasn't paying attention. She's too drunk for a Thursday, even one where there's nothing better to do than lounge on the patio and talk crap with friends. The office is letting people go and she'd been passing on the bad news all day before the train broke down on her commute back. The press of bodies and papers in the thick summer air clings with her. Now she just wants to let the day sink behind hooded eyelids and a cheap shiraz. But Sharon was talking about Mosh and whether he was serious a second ago; how did they get onto this?

"You mean, like fly? Up in the sky?"

Amelia parses the question with forced innocence, casual and disposable, leading no trail to her heart. So why does her gaze flit sideways, where an older girl sits, tawny-haired and brooding? Lucy has been quiet all evening, but now her eyes are flecked with strange thunder, drawing down the moon from its crooked crescent. Once Amelia would have asked her what's wrong. She knows better; that the secrets they share show the edges of only other secrets, undelved by touch and taste and sense. Things that leave the young woman only a known enigma.

"Yeah. When I was little, I wanted to be like in Peter Pan, well, like Tinkerbell actually. She was my favourite". Sharon stretches, oblivious to her companions. "When that didn't work out I demanded enough balloons at the fair to lift me. I think my parents didn't know what to do...."

Amelia frames her head on arms folded like crossed swords, laughing and being unnerved by laughter. Sharon is always the clever one; her life partitioned between books and facts. But there's something in her account that kindles innocence; something known but not understood. Amelia bites her lip thoughtfully, feeling the moment lengthen. Does her hand drift up to her side, briefly? Is she thinking about telling?

"Sometimes...." ponders Sharon. She sits up abruptly, her short black hair fringed over her eyes; a shadow within a shadow; "Sometimes I still wish I could. Fly, I mean."

"It would be cool, I guess," ventures Amelia, off-handedly. Lots of people have the same daydream. It's nothing special. Lucy hasn't said anything. The moment will pass.

Somewhere in the house behind them a CD spins down through Beatles' tracks. With a little help from my friends. Time winds itself about the companions. The wine slows in the blood; torpor and strange.

"That's stupid, that is". Lucy says, suddenly, breaking the silence. "Of all the things to wish for, being able to fly is stupid."

"Do you think?" Sharon is taken at the sudden vehemence, defensive in her need for explanation. "I thought it would be great, just being able to drift up, not having to worry about anything..."

"It wouldn't be great. In real life, you'd get bored. And this is London. Get covered in pigeon crap or crash into an aircraft, or something." Lucy insists; an open sneer. "You should wish for something useful, like psychic powers and stuff. Wanting to be able to fly is just stupid."

"Lucy, don't be..."

Amelia doesn't let herself finish, choking something like a sob. But Sharon holds onto the dream defiantly, it tugs in her heart like a balloon. Her balloon.

"Well. Maybe. I know it's not real. But I can still have a wish, even if it is silly. So I wish I could fly."

Sharon casts her eyes downwards, embarrassed by her fortitude and vulnerability. She should talk about work or boys instead. But somehow she can't let go.

"...in the sky with diamonds..."

Lucy draws out the silence, her view a horizon of early evening stars; three speckles against twilight. Vega. Deneb. Altair. Thin and watery-white, dipping celestial wings against a sky murky with the city-glow. Perhaps Arab alchemists invoke and conjure by its aegis. The signs are favourable. Inshallah and a thousand shekels for your wishes. What does she conjure with? The air is tangible stuff, accented with helium and the strange. Somewhere a threshold is crossed. She wishes Sharon didn't wish quite so hard.

"I've had enough. I'm going in," Lucy announces, rising. "Too tired for this shit tonight."

Umbra. Dark.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The walls are pale violet, cudgelled by the diffident light. A crack peels from the ceiling, hairline spider-work. Amelia traces it with a careful eye as it slips behind her friend. How deep does it go. Behind what we take for granted? Behind the casual glance?

Sharon is out at Tesco. The maisonette is quiet and the two of them sit in the lounge, somewhere in mid-morning. Amelia remembers crashing out on the sofa last night, shortly after Lucy turned in. Her shift doesn't start until noon, so she's not worried, it wasn't worth the half-hour walk back to her chapel-conversion flat. Now she sits here in a borrowed bathrobe and a coat of concerns. Slipping her hand inside its folds she can feel the puckered plastic valve lying flush in her side. Her fingertips seem to tremble slightly, as she remembers the other week and the danger. Perhaps that gives her the courage to ask the question.

"You're going to do it to her, aren't you?"

"Maybe." Lucy folds back on a deep-red bamboo chair of beaten leather, cross-legged and yawning. "I haven't decided. "You of all people should know what happens with stupid wishes."

"Don't be surly. I'm not looking for an apology.” Amelia pauses, hurt. "I accept what happened to me. I accept me. I just meant what is it going to be for her?"

“It’s different for everyone,” Lucy shrugs. "Do you mean, is it gonna be the same as you? I don't know. I really don't."

Lucy doesn’t choose to think its her choosing. She's uncompromising in her innocence. The others persons usually choose themselves. She just gets to pick up the pieces. Sometimes literally. She is a channel for things she does not understand. For the strange.

"Lucy...." Amelia hesitates. "What's wrong?"

"I just don't like doing it. You understand?" Lucy pushes her hands down into the cracked crimson, clutching it as if she feared to drift away. "Do you know what it's like, when this stuff keeps happening around you all the time? Do you?"

Lucy draws a deep breath, her skin is flushed. Guilt and anger wrestle in her. She needs to be more controlled. Bad things happen when she doesn't pay attention. She continues, choosing her words carefully.

"Amy, I'm 25 years old. For the past dozen years I've been terrified about what I can do. Do you know what it was like to think I was going crazy? And what I end up doing? No matter where I go, it follows me. There's you and now Sharon. I can't control myself. I'm starting to enjoy it. I'm going to get someone I care about hurt, real hurt."

"No, Luce, it's cool. I like the way I am, and...."

“Amy, you don't understand. It's worse than that. There's others. I got someone killed. Maybe more than one.” There. She said it. “I’m freakin' dangerous to be about.”

Amelia stands up and walks over to her. Crouching by the battered chair, she embraces gently as the older girl buries her face in her hands. Water is not her element, she was made for something different. thinks Amy.

"Luce...you have a gift...I don't know why...how...this happens. Its crazy. Its wonderful. I've never felt....no....listen....You taught me this once. You need to accept yourself, that it's part of you. I've seen you; its natural for you, there's no malice in your gift. Only in denying yourself. And denying others their wishes."

"You should be scared of me." Lucy sniffles. "Aren't you worried I'll screw up again?"

Amelia runs her hand through Lucy's hair, dark and tangled, letting the touch decide.

"I don't know what happened. But you're a good person, Luce. You have a good heart. I trust you."

"S'pose. I guess. I looked after you when you whacked into Canary Wharf, didn't I?" Lucy looks up with a crooked smile, its edges melting like watercolour in the drummed out light.

"Yeah, Luce, you looked after me." Amelia fingers her side, unconsciously. Her upturned smile easy as the sunflower.

A train moves in the distance. Through patio windows, the sun edges the cloud, gold in rags. The potted aspidistra shows the wind; the air shows only absence. Lucy puts out one hand, pushes and feels it push back with pressure secret and real. I can make things go all floaty, can't I? I can make Amy go all floaty. She likes that. Not bad for a girl with 4 GCSE's.

“I suppose I should ask, do you know anyone else who can…you know, like you can?” Amelia asks the question hesitantly, her hands expanding in gesture.

“No. There’s just me. I mean, my parents, well, my Dad anyway...no, they’re both normal. They don’t know about me. They just think I’m just....shy about people”.

Lucy allows herself a bitter laugh. In their duel solitudes, the kettle shrills. Amelia makes tea. The earthenware mug is fierce with heat, the edge of burning, pain and comfort in her hands. They both hold on.

“It’s not a coincidence, is it?” Amy concludes. "Both Sharon and I? The others? Her asking to fly, I mean?"

“No. Not really. It – I – whatever it is - draws them in. Moths to a frickin' candle flame.”

“Who?”

“Anyone, Amy. Anyone who wants it. I mean really wants. Not just like a daydream. But wanting so much they ache after it” Lucy pauses, catching her friend's eye. “Even if they don’t realise, at first.”

Lucy pauses abruptly as something shivers in her. Something understood, but out-of-reach. The hidden lure of longing. Wish hard enough, far enough, anything's possible. Did someone wish for her?

"I think I was wanting for a long time." Amelia whispers "Even if I didn't notice it."

Lucy laughs bitterly.

"People don't notice. Not really notice. Look, Amy, you're....bigger. Pushing a D-cup now. You'd think Sharon or your office would have spotted that, right? She's not stupid you know. But as far as she's concerned now you've always had big breasts. And that office cleaner in docklands...well, he's probably forgotten about it too. It just works that way."

"But I notice now. And it feels good." Standing, Amelia cups her breasts mischievously. "Good enough to share."

"You are a complete minx now, really!" Lucy throw a cushion across the room, misses. "God, I hope Sharon turns out better."

"So you're going to do it then? She will freak, you know. You saw how drunk we had to get her last night before she said that." Amy says.

"If I do it, you've got to promise you won't be jealous."

"No, it's OK. I know how you feel about her. I won't get it the way." declares Amy, and a sudden grin spreads across her face. "Hey, I have balloons for tits anyhow. How could I be jealous?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Listen, about last night..."

Sharon, drops back onto the sofa, the shopping bags straddling her knees. She adjusts her skirt, the dark twill pleats contrast against the cheap fabric and pine. They built it together as part of their self-assembly lives. But sometimes she doesn't know what her flatmate wants. The span of mercurial moods and distance baffles her, but she feels she has to reach out. Where to begin?

"Lucy. Look. I don't know why you're angry with me. I say some stupid shit when I'm drunk. This is London, we have jobs in Banks and HR and stuff. Magic doesn't happen."

"No, its OK, Shaz. It's me that should apologise. I really snapped at you, I was just being mean. Did you mean it?"

Lucy folds back against the sheet glass of the patio doors. Her arms are folded, almost defensively, and her hair cascades forward untidily. She wears her jeans and white tank top like armour, postured and feral. For a moment Sharon thinks her friend is still drunk. But Lucy is merely assured somehow. Relaxed in her poise, in herself.

"It was just a wish, Luce, nothing serious."

"Sure."

Diffident, Lucy moves to push back the sliding doors. At once the noise of distant traffic invades the room. Outside the light is smoke-brown, the city curdled in amber beyond. A matchstick 747 edges past the watery sunset. She licks a finger and holds it up, as if gauging windspeed, direction, weighing them against conscience.

"Come out here on the patio. I wanna show you something". Lucy announces. She scrapes the deckchairs back against the low wall with her foot.

"I've got the shopping to put away"

"Ignore that for a second. Just come out here"

Sharon walks out, suddenly aware of how tired she is. The air is strangely thick about her, a the dry sap of a city too long without rain. A thin buzzing sound seems to form at the edge of hearing, like the frission of cloth ripping. It's probably nothing.

"Do you trust me?". Lucy asks, abruptly.

"What?"

"Do you trust me?". Lucy is fierce with intensity, her gaze furrowed down the angles.

"Well, yeah. This isn't going to be one of those things where you turn out to be an axe murderer or something?" Sharon laughs nervously. Her body tenses, but she's known Lucy for years. She's a bit crazy, but a friend. Unconsciously, she smoothes down her skirt.

"I want you to close your eyes. And turn around. Just do it."

Sharon obeys hesitantly, trapped by her trust. From behind Lucy reaches out and folds her hands on the younger girl's shoulders. The peach cotton of the blouse ripples like skin under a lovers touch. Lucy can see the hairs on Sharon's neck twitch, the ruffle of her short dark hair scented with jasmine. Where her thumbs meet, the soft curve of her neck is delicately fluted, smooth as porcelain.

"Ooooh." Sharon wriggles, laughing in surprise. "Nooooo. I can't do massages. I'm too ticklish"

"Just relax. Close your eyes. Mmm-mm. Good. Now, just let yourself breathe. In and out." Lucy flexes, drawing in breath herself, feeling it mix and change within her. the girl in front of her is flexible, pliant too.

"I think I know how to breathe, Luce. Look, this isn't gonna be like acupuncture? My Uncle does that, and I go really weird..."

"Hey, no peeking!" Lucy admonishes. "No, no pins, promise. Its more like Reiki. You won't have come across it."

Flexible and pliant she thinks, flexible and pliant. Letting her fingers knead across her clavicle like dough. Yielding. Resilient. Rubber.

"That feels good". Sharon hears her words as if they come from a slight distance.

"Just stay relaxed. Think of something far away, long ago. Like....when you were at the fair, when younger. When you didn't get all those balloons."

Sharon smiles, whimsically, her head rolls to one side. "Sure"

"Take those balloons in your hand. There's a rainbow of colours. Red and blue and pink and green. You can feel them tug on your arm. You realise the helium in your balloon wants to go up and up..."

"Mmm-mm." Sharon nods, her head lolling, her hand clenching around imaginary balloon. Nuzzled against her neck, Lucy pushes sideways to the real, a change. A shift in nature. Girl to Gas. Breathing, blowing, Sharon's breasts rise and fall, rise and rise.

"I'm going to regret this" she mutters, her voice smothered by the shining flesh of her friend.

"What?" Sharon mumbles dreamily. Her body flexes, curves. Sensations drift up her spine, pooling like bubbles in her chest. She must be more tired than she thought. She could just drift away here.

"Nothing. Just keep hold of those balloons. Its a big bunch, bigger than you thought. You can feel them lifting your arms, tugging harder and harder."

"Feels dreamy." Sharon smiles, in secret reveries. Her arms rise gently from her side, unbidden. The fabric of her top seems to tighten about her torso, Her breath comes deeper now and her thighs flex, like bellows, slowly parting, as if her footing grew uncertain. She feels Lucy's lips nozzle against her spine, a pneumatic kiss imparting a secret she can't quite hear....

"Are you blowing on me?" she muses. It's hard to tell. The breeze seems to curdle about her, thickly. Invisible hands seem to work up her body, smoothing the sudden tightness of her clothes. Thin beads of perspiration condense on her breasts, tickled by the unseen wind. The same breath that catches the balloons, her thoughts flicking dark and wet, loose-tethered. She shouldn't feel so excited, so much....lighter.

"Just a little. It helps. Should I stop?". Lucy lets her fingers ghost astride the cusp of Sharon’s tits. The hidden hiss pulls their perking glory away, bouncing up to the embrace of air. Puckering threads part about her expanding cleavage, showing a deepening flush of heat. She can take it, Lucy thinks, she can really take it.

"No. I kinda like it. Tingly" Sharon, fumbles. Her head swims with a rainbow of merged colours. The balloons. She's carrying a giant bunch of latex bubbles. Their string is wrapped around her, entangling, cradling. She lets one foot gyrate lazily in a circle, stiffly transcribing a dance in the air. Her hold-ups pinch and stretch about calves suddenly. How is it that thighs seem to stiffen, poised with pressure, as if she could spring into the air?

"There's a lot of helium in those balloons." Lucy whispers. "Maybe too much helium...you know what can happen to silly girls if they have to many balloons to hold?"

Sharon's skin smoothes and glistens, tautening with a needling scent not unlike latex. Her blouse rides up as her belly sympathetically swells. She is curving, sublimed to an hourglass, leaking ballast through moaning pores. Sharon can feel the balloons, pulling, pushing. becoming more forceful against her yielding sensitivity. Sharon tries to pull her arms down, to touch, to hold herself. She can't. All about her is up, her scented body desperate with buoyancy.

"What...." the young girl gasps lightly. "What happens...with too many...."

Part of her knows she is going too far. Sharon is a good girl. Good girls don't orgasm when massaged. But her whole self feels adrift, the world falling away. Her eyes clench as she shivers, sundering the anchor of restraint, of gravity. She imagines the bubbles swelling in a rising sea of air, buoyed up at the cusp of her crotch. Lighter and lighter.

"They float." Lucy whispers into the girls ear, "Lighter than air."

Sharon inches helplessly over the cusp of levity, her shadow parting company with her toes. Her legs rise, flexed into the air like billowing inflatable, and her body follows. The sensations crowd through the moment; pale, slim, helium-light, balloon-girl. She is making little noises that Lucy can't distinguish. Be careful what you wish for honey. Sharon is floating in the air.

"Balloons...." Sharon’s echoes, the dream of a smile across her face.

Lucy hears the hollow of her secret gas maturing within her friend. With her arms spread-eagled, the young woman drifts horizontally, tethered only by the clawed grip in the fabric of her blouse. The fabric is now stretched over her expanded curves, pinching into valleys and smooth domes. Lucy feels their mutual nakedness easily, ripe under their clothes as she struggles to hold her, seized like lovers in coitus. She curses inwardly; she should have brought some string, didn't realise they could go so far, so easily. It would be easy for things to get out of hand, just like that time with.....

No. Lucy shakes herself. This is now. She has to get a grip of this...gift....before she goes completely nuts. If it's not Sharon, it will be someone else, elsewhen.

Sharon wobbles gently in the sunset breeze, her limp body cradled buoyantly. She opens her eyes slowly. Lucy is bending over her, framed by the indigo sky. a finger raised to her lips in the universal sign of silence and confidence.

For a long moment the young woman's face shows nothing of comprehension. But something is different. She feels it fully for the first time. Less-than-Weightless. Her head turns, to see her arms and legs waving unsupported 4 foot off the ground. Her eyes widen with the recognition of fear and delight, even as her body reacts. Desire and terror thrashes through her as hands, feet, seek purchase on something, anything, to deny the buoyant reality of her being, to restore weight, meaning, to a reality gone wild. She opens her mouth to scream when Lucy slaps a hand to smother it.

"Shut up". hisses Lucy, struggling to keep hold, "It's not yet dark and we have neighbours. Do exactly what I say or I'll let go and you won't come down until you hit Greenland."

That’s probably not true, about the neighbours. She knows people tend not to notice strange, but she's taking no chances.

Sharon flexes, gasping. Her friend is strong; stronger than she'd ever have guessed. God. I'm floating. What’s happened to me? People can't float. I'm floating. Don't be stupid. I'm lighter than air. I must be dreaming. Don't let this be real (oh please let it be real). It can't be real. Wishes don't come true, I mean, really, really, come true.

"This can't be happening". Sharon mouths dryly, her hope barely showing through the edge of tears. Her look dares Lucy to disappoint, to reveal the hidden cameras, the trickery. I wasn't really fooled. No, ha-ha, I'm not upset. Who seriously wants to fly anyway?

"Listen. Sharon. It's real. Honest to goodness real. Those balloons you were thinking of....they made you...I made you....lighter than air. You wished, hon". Lucy is earnest and infinitely kind. Don't hate me for this.

"Seriously" Sharon mutters, pathetically, joy and trepidation mingled in her eyes.

"Seriously". Lucy unclenches her grip. Sharon bobs gently upwards, barely restrained. For a long moment neither says anything.

"I can fly." Sharon swallows hard. "Fuck me. I'm flying."

Her face glistens, dewed down by delight. She gives tiny little sob. She flexes, feeling the air push her, lift her. Her whole body seems strangely curved, sensitive to the taut vulnerability eked through clothed skein. Every motion is fraught with sensation, it seems as if the slightest touch could push her again into wriggling ecstasy. And the buoyancy, she whimpers at the sense of buoyancy, part of her already wants to ride its bucking lift up and up and....

"Floating." Lucy corrects. "You're floating, not technically flying".

But her friend seems not to notice. Sharon moves her arms slowly, fighting the strange resistance that finds herself pregnant with pressure. Hesitant fingertips trace up the rounded arc of her buttocks, her side, her breasts. The treacle-motion motion rolls her gently in mid-air, and Lucy shifts with effort to hold her.

"Bigger...." she Sharon emotes; dumbly, wondering.

"You've....got some a kind of gas in you. A special sort of gas." Lucy says, keeping her tone even. "It's like a balloon...."

"Like a balloon." Sharon responds, her intuition blanking her disbelief. "What...how did you do this?"

She giggles manically, her eyes alight, though her lips tremble hesitant. As if a question could dispel the magic, burst her like a soap bubble. In the silence of confidences, Lucy leans against her friend, folding down the fabric of her skirt where it rides up over inflated thighs. The younger girl's body aches of upness beneath her touch, a warmth of secrets to reveal in high places. Their eyes meet; but neither looks away.

"Its strange. Since I was younger. 14. Things have been a little...strange." Lucy sighs, whimsically. "It a gift. I wanted to share it with you." She watches, uncertain. Please Sharon, she thinks, please be cool with this. And Sharon's face breaks into an enormous grin, splitting the moment.

"I don't believe it. This is ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE" Sharon kicks out in dangerously exaltation, "I'm lighter than air! I mean, really lighter than air. God, I have to tell..."

A flailing arm catches Lucy under the chin. It's not deliberate, but enough to unbalance, untether. At once, Sharon shoots up like a rocket. In sudden terror, she gives a short, strangled scream, grasping futilely at the air. But her mistake admits no mercy, no means of arrest to her ascent. The light from the lounge slips down her body like a mooring rope, rotating vertically as buoyed breasts seek the sky, the secret helium carrying its inflated captive up, and away.

The last moment. Lucy lunges. Hands seize a flailing foot. Several dozen pounds of positive buoyancy jerk uneasily through her grasp and Lucy is pulled from her feet. For a moment both women are suspended, enough for Lucy to admit a moment of chilling doubt. She's a natural. Natural balloon. How can I hold her? She means to fly. Then the moment passes, and they sink slowly back down to the patio. Sharon waves overhead like a tethered blimp.

"Don't let go. Don't let go. Please don't let go." Sharon babbles.

"I've got you. I've got you" repeats Lucy breathlessly. She claws down on the plumply inflated calves of her friend, running ladders down tan hold-ups. Inadvertently, she notices her friends has laced black knickers concealed beneath her flapping skirt. Those would have made quite a statement to everyone at 5,000 feet. She thinks, dimly, securing her arms about the floating girl's waist.

"Why the fuck did you do this outside?" Sharon shrieks, suddenly hysterical. "I could float up and....and never come down!"

"Because you wouldn't have understood. To make you realise it is real and serious" hisses Lucy. "You wanted to fly. Well, now you're floating. Deal with it, balloon-babe. And you're not telling anyone. Do you understand? Say you understand. Promise me you won't tell anyone or I'll let go right here."

Sharon nods, wide-eyed.

"Listen," Lucy continues, gentler now. "I'm sorry. But we can't let anyone know. Not Mosh, not anyone. I'm not having my face in the Daily Mail. I don't want my parents thinking I'm some kind of freak. I certainly don't want to spend my life in some government laboratory like on the X files. This isn't a game. Yes, I can make people float; maybe even fly. But there's a thousand things that can go wrong. Do you know anything about air currents? Weather? Thought about landing? Do you even know how to get down? "

"Well, I suppose I just.....oh." Sharon blinks. "I guess I can just like, flap my arms? Or something?"

Cautiously now, Sharon strokes through the air, grunting against the tangible nothing which supports her. It feels like swimming through bubbles, slinking across her skin. For a moment the flagstones of the patio draw closer. But progress is slow, and her efforts flush, exhaust. Her arms tire; balloons can't stop themselves. She moans softly as her ineluctable buoyancy take over, and she cushions once more up into Lucy's arms.

"Damn....I can't.....some Tinkerbell...feel more like the Goodyear blimp...." Frustrated, Sharon purses her lips, blowing a deep raspberry. "Damnit. I...don't know....if I'm like a balloon then I just need to deflate....somehow. You tell me! You didn't just blow me up if there wasn't a way to get back to normal again? Did you?" Sharon's eyes implore nervously.

Lucy snickers. "Oh, hon, you can't get rid of this gas so easily. It's in here, and here." One hands ghost over the bloated bumps of her friend; caressing her heaving breasts, her pink cheeks, to settle on her forehead.

"You got yourself this way. You're going to have to get yourself down." She takes Sharon's hands in her own, letting her drift upwards a way, intertwined only by fingertips. She can hear the other girl's heart beating rapidly, scared, excited. She doesn't blame her. She remembers what it was like the first time she tried this. She really hopes it works the same way for Sharon. She'd feel really bad if her friend had to walk around in lead boots for the rest of her life.

"Close your eyes again, like before. And try wafting. Don't wave your arms. Go with the breeze. Think of those balloons. Imagine yourself with them. Up and down, down and down. Gently. Works for me"

Sharon closes her eyes, swallows hard, stretching out. "I think....I feel it. Just let one go...one balloon...steady.....oooooooh!"

She opens her eyes, fingertips trembling at arms length. Lucy is stood 3 yards away, her hands down by her sides. She realises she is floating unsupported at head height. Face down, she can see her unfastened shadow seep across the paving as a zephyr takes and drifts her.

"See? That's neutral buoyancy. You're a natural!" smiles Lucy encouragingly. "Better than I am. Wooah, careful!". Sharon has begun to rise again, helium bubbles percolating through her distraction. The breeze has carried her close enough to the miniature apple tree potted at patio edge and she grabs its branches awkwardly.

"Oh wow. I am getting so carried away." Sharon giggles. "I can't believe I'm doing this. Wait a minute....did you say you could do this yourself?"

"Yeah," says Lucy, her nonchalance insincere. "I can do it myself. Flying. Floating. Lighter-than-air. Could probably do it with bubblegum, if I wanted. Whatever."

"Oh-my-God. You can too? That's so neat!" Sharon enthuses. "Lucy, you have to come with me! Please?"

"What right now? Up there?". Untethered is what she means. Lucy hesitates. Afraid to acknowledge the sharing of her own hopes, desires. Afraid to end her aloneness. Afraid to step up and up and...what? Sharon is a friend. Maybe more than a friend. What couldn't they share, now?

"Yes. Right now! We can, can't we? Together? I promise not be scared but you have to tell me everything."

Sharon looks across, hopeful. One hand detaches slowly from her fruit tree ballast, leaving her an apple, bobbing, tempting. The sky is blush pink, young with twilight, and between thin strips of cloud, she can see Eden.

Lucy shuffles her feet, raises one eyebrow. The decision, she knows, is made, the confidence returned. But part of her lets the tease linger yet. “You're supposed to tell me that this is London. That stuff like this just doesn’t just happen, that we have regular jobs and wishes don't come true."

"Lucy, I really wish we could fly, together." says Sharon, simply. And in that moment she is perfect. Through eyes both open and closed Lucy can see the rainbow of balloons about the frame, about the heart. She smiles, steps forward, and draws herself into the fantasy with entangling breath.

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