Chapter Text
The kite was simply wonderful, and as Melson Nelson ran up the hill to Jim’s house there was a wide grin across his freckled face. After climbing the two creaky steps up to the painted red door, and knocking enthusiastically, he could not stop himself blurting out,
“Let’s play with it now!”
Jim shot a more anxious glance to the graying clouds, where already thunder was grumbling. He hung back, causing Melson to pout.
“C’mon, Jim, I thought you were my friend.” Whined Melson. This was enough to tempt Jim from his stronger qualms, so, still doubtful, he pulled on his shoes, and followed his friend out into their front garden. A tall apple tree grew near the side of the house, dominating over the smaller potted plants and assorted shrubbery.
For a while, they ran up and down the garden, kite bobbing behind them, soaring gloriously well, like some sort of phantom, connected to the earth only by a scrap of string. It tugged against the soft palms of Melson, and he handed it to Jim, saying that he preferred to just watch it fly, rather than fly it himself.
Jim smiled, running along but as he did, the first true beginnings of the storm crackled over the garden, rain falling in waves, damp and heavy, making his brown curls stick to his forehead. Melson called out that he wanted to fly the kite again, and Jim handed it over, a clutch of anxiety growing in his chest.
“I don’t think it’s going to be safe for much longer, Mel.” He commented, trying to persuade his friend to stop it before the storm properly began. Melson wrinkled his nose,
“Hmm, just a little longer, Jimmy. Please?” As he spoke, a gust of wind tugged the kite from his rain-slicked hands, and the kite, bobbing on the currents, arced through the air.
Both boys held their breaths, praying it would just fall back down, or get caught in the tree, but no, it flew straight for the roof of Jim’s house, lodging itself between two of the chimneys that rested high in the air.
Melson’s lips quivered, and he said in a voice that threatened to become full blown sobbing, “Jim - my kite! My kite!”
Jim cocked his head, trying to think. A realization struck Melson, and he said in a softer tone,
“You’ve climbed on the roof before, right, Jimmy?”
Jim nodded slowly, “Well… Ye-es?”
Melson walked closer, placing a damp hand onto Jim’s shoulder.
“Say you just… climbed that tree, before crawling along that branch there, and then wriggling along the ivy before you reach just by my kite. Then you can just chuck it down, do the climbing in reverse and we can play with it again when the storm is over?”
Jim hesitated. “But that’s dangerous - look there’s lightning now too!”
As if to emphasize his point, streaks of jagged lightning pierced the sky, as if the gods of ancient tales were throwing an anger tantrum. Melson let out a shrill wail tears leaking from his grey eyes, and a pained expression covered Jim’s face.
“Fine, fine I’ll do it!” He cried. “Just, don’t ask me to do that sort of thing again…and you’ll owe me mega-time.”
“Anything!” Melson placed a hand onto his heart.
Anxiety still wriggling in chest, a shard of anger in his heart, Jim approached the apple tree.
Placing a hand on one of the lower branches, he shot one last glance back at Melson, who nodded him on enthusiastically. Grumbling under his breath “Fricking idiot, flying a kite in this bloody weather.” he clambered up the rain-slathered branches. More than a few times he almost slipped, and his heart was thumping hard in his chest by the time he had even reached the edge of the roof.
When he reached the roof, Melson let out a whoop, and Jim allowed himself to smile thinly, trying not to think about the drop below him, or the slashing lightning filling the air.
The pressure was different on the sloping roof of his home. It felt like the sky was reaching down, instead of you needing to look up, it was like it was around you, rather than far away.
He walked carefully across the cracking roof tiles, Melson shouting encouragement from down on the ground. When he reached the chimneys, where the white kite was still struggling feebly from where it had gotten lodged, Jim reached out a smallish hand, grabbing the kite and giving a hard tug.
He almost overbalanced, and there was a rush of vertigo as the kite broke free the rope flapping around like the tail of some animal.
In his moment of triumph, as he called down to Melson, “I’ve got it!,” a flash of white-and-yellow light filled the air.
Jim had a moment to realize he had heard the thunder; a booming ripple that reminded him of how his father would slam down his mug after a few drinks, before there was a terrible, white-hot agony in the side of his head neck, that reached down to his shoulders.
His body jerked around like a puppet who’s strings have been yanked by some small child, before crumpling, the kite slipping from his still-twitching fingers, down. The roof under him, weak from age, and weakened further from the rain and harsh weather cracked under this sudden collapse, and Melson could only watch as his friend’s prone corpse fell into the attic.
Panic filled Melson’s body. He ran for his kite, before changing his mind, leaving it on the ground that was soaked by the relentless rain.
He fled the scene. In his mind stories of how he would be arrested if anyone found out were the only things playing. He could not understand how something as simple as retrieving the kite could have ended the way it did.
As he scrambled down the hill, Jim’s mother, a taller thinner woman poked her head round the door, calling out,
“Jimmy? Melson? It’s getting dark, and dangerous, come in for dinner maybe?” More guilt roiled in Melson’s chest, and he was sobbing as he entered his own home. His mother could not get any answers out, except that something involving his new kite had gone dreadfully awry.
Meanwhile, in a new verson of life Jimmy opened his eyes, but there was something wrong...