𝑺𝑻𝑨𝑹𝑮𝑰𝑹𝑳 | ᵍʳᵉʸˢ ᵃⁿᵃᵗᵒᵐʸ

𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑘𝑒𝑟𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑓𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑠 | ¹⁹⁹⁵

𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐇𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐀𝐍, 𝟏𝟗𝟗𝟓

I was six years old, it was Halloween, and my innocent little world was filled with magic.

Dressed in a Tinkerbell costume that seemed to be sprayed with magic, I stood there, glittering and winged. I was not only disguised, I was transfigured.

My bedroom was on the third floor of our brownstone near Central Park. It was my little palace, my very own Neverland. And from here, the skyline didn't seem so out of reach anymore.

Just one step, just a little faith in magic, and I could levitate.

I opened the window, and a tantalizing whiff of freedom permeated the room. The cool October wind blew in, playing with my long dark hair.

The windowsill became my runway. And me?
I was Tinkerbell, I could fly, and in my mind, there was no doubt about it.

"Missy!"

My mother's voice cut through the air, followed by the faster, heavier footsteps of my father, alarmed as he burst into the room with Uncle Mark and Aunt Amelia.

They found me there on the windowsill, hovering between possibility and tragedy. My feet, in green glittering ballet flats, perilously close to the edge. My short arms outstretched.

I turned my head toward them, my smile as innocent as the clouds framing the moon.

"I'm Tinkerbell, Mommy. Look, I can fly."

What for her was a heart-stopping moment of pure fear was for me an interruption of the magic I had just created.

"Missy, honey, you look beautiful. Why don't you show us your costume?" My mother tried to hide her concern with a smile.

"Yes, you are the most beautiful Tinkerbell I have ever seen," added my father, the man of science, the neurosurgeon. His face was white as chalk, his eyes fixed on my unsteady feet, dancing restlessly just one step from the edge.

Amelia tried to capture the excitement.
"Shall I tell you a fairy tale, Missy?"

At that moment it felt so real to me. The wind gently caressing me, the freedom I felt in my little chest.

I was Tinkerbell.
And Tinkerbell flies.

While they were busy stroking my childish ego, hoping it would bring me closer to reality, Mark moved silently toward me like a shadow.

And then, in a sudden, swift moment that lasted barely longer than a heartbeat, he grabbed my arms and pulled me from my sky-high pedestal of illusion back into the room. Away from the boundary between this world and the next, away from the terrible possibility that hung in the air.

I was shocked, uprooted from my imagination. Falling from such a height in one's own mind is often harder than the physical impact.

My illusion shattered, the adrenaline faded.
I wasn't a fairy, I couldn't fly, and the hard reality of the parquet floor beneath my feet felt like a sentence.

And I cried, not because I couldn't fly, but because of my family around me, in whose eyes I suddenly saw what they really thought. That behind my naive smile and childish imagination lurked something dark and dangerous.

Because unlike me, they knew that we lived in a world where gravity always wins and wings are made of cloth.

"Missy, you are our little Tinkerbell. But in real life, we can't fly," my mother whispered in a trembling voice, trying to reach me with words that were not too rational for my innocent, fairy-tale loving heart.

I nodded slowly, my wings a little heavier and the magic a little weaker. I wasn't Tinkerbell, I was just a girl with brain damage who didn't fully understand the dangers of the world.

I believed I could fly. They thought they could always save me. Both ideas were equally unrealistic. I was a child who had gone too far. They were my family who didn't know how to bring me back.

And as I cried, I wondered if Tinkerbell had ever flown too far.