It was the 45^th floor of the 11^th building on the street, they all looked straight up, you could never see the top half of a building like that. It wasn’t us making the things taller; it was the clouds getting closer. These days you couldn’t see beyond thirty stories without a stewing mass of grey soup to remind you of the way things were. You go to the office, and what used to be a charming view of the city out of the window turns into churning wisps of silver streaming along the walls, as if the stuff was too impatient to just avoid you. It wasn’t ominous, or foreboding in the slightest, it was just like a great ceiling of concrete using the skyscrapers as support. Up on the 45^th, it was a different world altogether. I suppose it was stupid of us at the time, but worse ideas have come around, and it was spiritual. I heard a story about an astronaut, who said that he heard the voice of God in the vacuum; as soon as he hit the tarmac, he resigned to become a missionary, so you can see how we got so mixed up in it all.

The test was simply, find two buildings of exacting height (twins we called them) and you jump them. It was a nice simple act, very old-school but we all thought it was the newest idea in the world. The ones who made it said they were sailing on the sky, said that the clouds may as well have been a million miles away, because that was the penalty; if you reached the clouds there was no point pretending that anyone was going to mention you ever again. Those who stood on the other side though, they were prophets, wizened souls who told us all how the fresh air was the only thing to be around for. Every year more and more people moved up, people coming in from small country towns who’d never seen the sky before, people who wanted to hear the leapers talk about everything. The people on the ground adored them; anyone who leapt was the talk of the town if they ever came down from the towers. What started as weekends of skygazing amongst a few good friends became the biggest religious movement in the world.

That was where I came in: I worked for months and months on the ground, every night I would climb the office block near the house, and every day they turned me away. You see, you have to be as light as a feather to see the sky, that was their creed and anyone who didn’t have the skill or body for the leap was turned away. Being female was my biggest drawback, not for reasons of sexism, but because of my figure. I was thin, but not thin enough. Everyone who wanted to join was expected to have surgery, to eliminate anything that was classed as ‘dead weight’, as almost inquisition-esque purge of anything that could create drag or leave excess weight. The men were castrated, and any other ‘unnecessary organs were removed, such as the appendix, gall bladder and anything else that wasn’t absolutely necessary for the body’s survival. Women has a similar ordeal to look forward to, after the unneeded organs were removed, the breast and womb were stripped away, and all skin was pulled taught in every region of the body, creating an taut, drag free look that made leapers very vulnerable to the slightest injury. The process took years, dozens of procedures, but the money greases the scalpels of the only-too-eager surgeons. Beyond this entire horrific ordeal a strict and damaging training regime ensued, pushing their frail bodies ever further to improve and ingrain their sinews with just one more second of power, with one last twitch that would push them over the edge.

I was changed, had every vestige of womanhood taken away, but by my own eager choice and blessing did they all disappear. My family loved me so dearly they paid for fine and able doctors to butcher their little lady, make her worthy to them. The dutiful daughter found every moment she got closer to the goal, closer to the sky a riot and cacophony of joyous emotions. She loved every doctor who ever took a knife to her, thanked them so profusely for her decaying husk of a body. I begged for as much as I could possibly endure, let every follicle of hair be burned from my body and let every pounding step and jump take another month away from my life. So beautiful was the thought of sky that I would give another 30 years of good health for just a moment. To look at the endless rolling barrage of mottling grey was to dare to defy it, I dreamt of flying but an inch from it, and casting vile spit and phlegm at it for holding me back for so long.

The date was July the 6^th, when I finally saw the sky. I thanked my parents so much for never telling me the colour of it. Not one inch of grey ever despoiled the beauteous and violent blue, no swirling or churning to be seen, or spinning or swirling or dirty and vulgar colours. But an unending, even-spread matt blue to be lost in, here the air was an all-pervading sensory magic, far below the air was always set upon by the vile smokes, forcing them down and around and always to the smoke’s bidding. Upon the rooftops there is no smoke, upon the rooftops the air breathes free.

‘Sarah? Sarah my dear it’s time to begin your session with the Good Doctor.’ For three years he has been the Good Doctor mother, when is he going to grow a name of his own? Just as she said, the Good Doctor was stood in the hall, a look of quiet and calm calculation upon his smooth and settled features. Not changed though, Lord no! And perish the very thought! Good Doctor was a whole being, and only a stepping stone to greater things, a mere man to be stepped upon on the climb to the sky, he tutored young people starting their ‘upward journeys’ as we called them. I had such as affection for this wonderful Doctor. When I came to greet him; I silently raised my arms into a semi-circle around him, never touching. The force and impact of an embrace would shatter the skin, brittle as rice paper. We went to the gym and spent the morning in training, the worst I had ever endured; something was different about today, and about the way he was pushing me just that little bit harder… ‘Dear Sarah, you’ve got to keep your legwork consistent, if you can’t achieve velocity before the clock hits four seconds you may as well pack a raincoat, because clouds are all you’ll be seeing. Now reset the machine and try HARDER!’ The velocity machine (a treadmill with a souped-up engine and a £7000 price tag retraced it’s steps and began to roar again, sending my legs pounding to follow them. The Good Doctor smiled gleefully, seeing the marked improvement. ‘… *huff* … but Good Doctor… *huff* … Why are you making all this effort today?’ The smile got wider and wider, tracing curved lines along his cheeks and wrinkling his nose to the ridge, shifting his glasses but a millimetre. ‘Dear Sarah today is your day! Couldn’t you tell?! You’re going up!’ He brought the machine down to a slow stop and brought himself a chair from the far corner. Pouring water for us both, he sat down and toasted my success, rich, belly-soaked laughter thundering out from his chest. Today was my day… Today…

My family stood assembled in their entirety at the house, large and spacious as it was it was too small to house them all, distant relative and their families, people from far away and far gone. They all cheered from the front garden, dozens of them all appeared to congratulate the pride of the family, the High Lady of the Monet’s. Each and every one of them all decked out in tops and tails, an extravagant party and all the silks and styles to accompany. Even the Good Doctor himself stood resplendent in a suave onyx suit, jarred only with the strangest blue tie against his dark skin. The whole affair was the characteristic opulence of a rich family in days such as ours, people came from miles away to see Sarah Monet, the girl who was going to see the sky. There was a marquee, within which was a seat of honour. Those of importance made congratulatory toasts in my name, and I myself thanked everyone for their great love and support, as such things are done. The hours fell away though, and as the clocks struck six I was climbing the stairs of an ancient office building, watching the workers stare at me with awe and shock, a leaper? On our building? Fascinating. I smiled and waved at them, tears running in two single, constant streams down the sides of my face. I was so happy, but so unknowledgeable as to what I was moving towards, what it could entail, but that is how it should have been, and I would never change this.

It was the 45^th floor of the 11^th building on the street, that looked straight up and punctured the dirty grey mess. I held the whole of my body against the old steel door and heaved, the hinges screeching whalesong as they were forced out of their rust for one brief moment. The force of the unfettered air filled my lungs to bursting before I could even close my mouth and I panicked, unsure if I was drowning or dying. Two hands, each that I barely recognised as my own clamped rigidly over my mouth and throat respectively, to inhale the stuff with my nose stung, and the smell was… there was no smell. No acrid, bitter taste in my mouth that had lingered there not moments ago had been shook clean by a single breath. Every story was truth; the unfettered air could force snow from mountains and smoke from the most filth-encrusted of people. I realised what I was breathing; and still not yet brave enough to open my eyes, released my hands to my sides and took slow, deep breaths, actually feeling the air ooze over the rough edges of my windpipe and trace further. This was incredible! It was a foolish thing to think, but I wondered what the air looked like up here, I couldn’t imagine anything other than some beautiful kind of smoke. But my eyes were unable to see a thing, for upon their opening they were met with a light so fierce I thought I was going blind with panic. Even this great light faded into a yellow-white disk, reaching shards of further lights lancing over… over… Reams of blue, endless, bountiful blue! Not a single swirl or angry gut-wrenching contortion of mist! This blue was so smooth as to be a perfect dome over the world, with not a piece out of place upon it. I fell to the floor and curled into a foetal ball, facing the bright disk and weeping with pure bliss.