NANOWRIMO 2020

11.05 Flight Class

Sora wanted to touch the sky and he had a 4-step plan of how to get there. There were technically 5 steps but he kind of mashed the last and the second-to-last steps together because they were similar enough that he didn't see a reason to keep them apart.

There were only 4 steps...but each one could realistically be broken into so many little steps and pieces that Sora felt a tad overwhelmed at times. But whenever that happened he just had to shake off his fear and keep going. What's a little turbulence when you're riding high and feeling free?

It was a process to get out of school, lots of stupid tests and stupid teachers and pointless days spent doing nothing he wanted to do. Not that this was beneath him or that he was completely adverse to doing the menial labor, but he was often bored and lacking in motivation to knock out the baby building blocks to get to where he needed to be.

So a lot of high school was him doing the bare minimum and scraping by with a passing grade that barely got him out of the class. It didn't matter what grades he got because it didn't matter since he was going to fly. English didn't matter— the birds didn't need words to speak of their love of the sky. Math was irrelevant—it was all complex equations and differentials and Sora didn't see how that would help him in later life.

To anybody observing Sora outside of his own mind, he didn't seem like he had much of a plan, or much of a future, if his counselors were being honest. There was an unspoken rule amongst the student advisors that no student was a lost case. But Sora...Sora toed that line the entire time he was at school and even when they asked him for a future career plan and tried to schedule parent-teacher meetings.

Sora was an annoyed boulder that they could not reason with nor could they understand.

They knew him to be bright and popular amongst his peers, albeit an airhead at times and wholly unmotivated to do any kind of schoolwork. He grasped concepts easily, but couldn't find it in himself to sit down for an hour or two to commit to learning.

Anything.

So college admissions rolled around and Sora made no plans and made no effort to apply to schools. He had a plan. And that plan didn't really involve his teachers or his counselors, much less his indifferent parents who encouraged him as much as a cabbage would.

Sora barely passed his classes, almost needing to take an exam to get his GED. The day of the graduation ceremony passed by in blissful ignorance while he exercised his right to play video games in the comfort of his home instead of awkwardly shuffling in a blue bathrobe under an unforgiving summer sun.

Step 1—completed.