Taking Flight

EMILY DAVIS

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The eyes of the children wandered up into the sky, their attention fixating on a spherical, seemingly massless body. Just moments before, they had used air from the very insides of themselves to produce this form. Yet now, their creation was to evaporate, leaving no trace of its presence behind. They learned quickly that the life of a bubble was none other than fleeting.

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But maybe this vanishing act was just all pretend. Maybe there was a way to preserve the bubble, to commemorate its graceful movements and delicate airiness. Why not add some substance to this floating creature? And so into the hands of the children fell colored dyes. With no hesitation, the children concocted kaleidoscopic mixtures, marrying their once lonely bubble mix to the blues of the warm July sky, the pinks of their favorite doll’s dresses, and the greens of the lizards that often gave them fright.

The children grabbed one more determined gulp of air, gripped their hands tightly onto a wand, and laid a blank white piece of paper onto the table beside them. The children never could have guessed what would happen next, as they soon discovered a bubble gently resting upon their canvas, shimmering yet unwaveringly still. Would this bubble’s fate remain the same as those that had come before it, simply disappearing with its story untold?

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One child braved this lingering uncertainty, forcefully pushing his finger through the transparent globule. With a sudden pop, color exploded across the page. But while the fragile bubble had burst, its spirit had not been broken. Its remnants arranged themselves in no orderly fashion, taking no standard shape or size, showing all admirers its wild personality that had been hidden inside all along. What was next for their former bubble buddies, now eternally pressed into the fibers of their canvases? Embraced by the guidance of the children’s imaginations, their limits became as infinite as the sky’s ceiling above.  ■