The Leap
By Shelly Jones
Daed unraveled the blueprint with a flourish and splayed his design before the Assembly. They squinted at the thin lines inching across the paper like ants and shook their heads skeptically.
“Another labyrinth?” one papery voice finally croaked. Daed thought of dried leaves cracking in a fire, of feathers desiccating in the sun.
“A kind of one, yes,” he replied. “A labyrinth in the sky.” Daed searched the ashen faces of the Assembly before looking down at his hands and tucking them behind his back.
“To get us closer to the sun that is killing us? That has killed so many already?” the voice hissed, spiraling serpentine up to the rafters.
“For too long we have viewed the sun as an enemy,” Daed began. “But it is one we cannot fight. What do you do with such an enemy but make a treaty, become allies instead?”
A murmur swelled among the Assembly like the birdsong of old. Daed’s ears strained to discern individual voices. Fool and just so, just so rose above the others. The papery voiced one tapped their bench lightly and the others went silent. Daed waited, eyes cast upward, for their final word.
☼
Daed slipped his arms into the solar cell wings and leapt into the air, scouting for the right place to start construction.
“What will your new sky city be called?” the Assembly had asked as Daed turned from the council room, eager to begin.
“Icarus,” Daed whispered as he lilted upward toward the sun.
Shelly Jones (they/them) is a professor at a small college in upstate New York, where they teach classes in mythology, folklore, and writing. Their speculative work has been published by F&SF, Apex, The Future Fire, and elsewhere. Find them on Twitter @shellyjansen or at shellyjonesphd.wordpress.com.