Hank stretched his fingers. He fidgeted with his collar, rocked on the balls of his feet, and stretched his fingers again. Common practice called for a third, and final, stretch of the fingers, but Hank predated that rule.
Although only forty years of age, Hank was ancient in his game. A memory of ages past. A great in his prime to be sure, but Hank was all too aware that those days were long behind him.
In fact, this would be Hank’s very last performance.
Hank leaned back in his office chair and pulled out his phone. With a practiced precision, he swiped to his games section and clicked on Tiny Wings. He touched the app’s watercolor icon, breathing in short, controlled breaths.
The sounds of the game’s intro called back memories to him. Hank remembered when the game had been at the height of its popularity. The excitement of the new.
It was a game where you controlled a bird trying to jump from one hilly island to another, slightly different, hily island, in a race against the coming night.
But in so many ways, it wasn’t a game.
Those days were over, Hank knew. Nobody huddled around his cubicle anymore, trying to catch a glimpse of his gameplay. Nobody asked about his high scores. In fact, his boss had recently told him that he had been overly distracted with playing games on his phone.
But Hank put those thoughts out of his head. He knew that even a whiff of an errant thought could take you out of the Wings. Make you miss. Fail.
And it was Hank’s last game. His boss had made that clear. Hank couldn’t afford less than his best.
So it was with an empty mind that Hank clicked the play button. Solely focused on the first jump.
Hank angled it perfectly. He breathed a slight sigh of relief: so far, so good. Hank hit the next two jumps perfectly as well, and then he was in fever mode.
Hank felt the rush as the vibrant rainbow of color rocketed out the butt of his tiny-winged bird, but he knew better than to get distracted. He concentrated on the next jump, he hit that as well, and before he knew it, he was flying towards the second island.
A coworker walked by Hank’s desk.
“What are you doing?” She asked Hank.
Hank did not answer. He knew if he took his mind off the game for even a moment it could all come tumbling down.
“Playing Tiny Wings?” She continued, “Oh wow, look at you go.”
Hank had stopped listening, but he was still aware of her presence. Watching his game over his shoulder. He nearly missed a mini jump towards the end of the second island –he had to stay concentrated.
Hank continued through the third and fourth islands with reasonable ease; they were always his easiest, but towards the end of the fourth, Hank grew worried.
Hank was still in fever mode. He did not remember the last time he had lasted so long, but he knew what was coming: the fifth island.
Hank had never cleared the fifth island perfectly. He wasn’t sure it was even possible.
But it was coming either way.
Just as Hank was angling to land on the fifth, he heard a shout, “We believe in you, Hank!”
Hank realized more than just one person was watching, but several. He jerked in surprise before catching himself, but it was too late. In Tiny Wings, even a nanosecond of distraction can be a death sentence.
But somehow, instead of crashing into the side of a hill, the tiny bird landed gracefully on the downslope of the first hill. It rocketed back up into the sky, fever mode continued.
Hank hadn’t been sure before, but now he was confident, God was in his Tiny Wings. He crested the slopes of the fifth island with ease. Then the sixth. And the seventh.
Before Hank knew it, he was at the eighth island.
It had been years since he’d last made it to the eighth. He remembered the last. He’d been in a fight with his work-wife.
She had been angry he didn’t spend more time with her during lunch. Hank was furious she was getting in the way of his Tiny Wings.
It was lunch when he had made it to the eighth island. When she’d grabbed his phone from his hands. When she’d thrown it at the far wall.
Their relationship ended soon after. Mostly because she had been fired, but also because she had robbed greatness from him.
But now Hank was back, no work-wife to stop him.
He crested the final hill of the eighth island and shot towards the ninth. He didn’t have much memory of this island’s terrain –he’d have to trust his instincts.
Sweat began to form in the nooks of Hank’s fingers. For most, that is the first sign of impending failure. But Hank wasn’t most.
At the apex of a jump, Hank pressed the pause button. He wiped his hands on his pants. He looked around, the crowd around his desk was even larger.
Hank nodded his head and unpaused the game.
The ninth island gave way to the tenth, and with it, the even faster-approaching darkness that chased the bird.
For much of his career, Hank had feared that darkness. It had been failure. Defeat. Death.
In between islands, Hank thought about the darkness, allowing his mind to wander for the briefest of moments.
Maybe it was his age, or the fact that Hank had been playing Tiny Wings for so long now, but Hank was not afraid. It was just the dark. Even so, Hank wanted a moment longer in the sun.
He crested into the tenth island, hitting the first hill like a daredevil jumping off a ramp. Hank needed distance now, he couldn’t afford the fancy airtime of a high jump.
The bird was going so fast that Hank could barely make out the details on the screen. Even so, Hank was deadly calm. This was his game.
But, as Hank neared the final ramp of the tenth game, the one that would send Hank’s bird to the mysterious, and ever-coveted eleventh island, the unthinkable happened, a low battery notification flashed on the screen.
Hank knew he should have bought a new phone. He knew the diminished battery capability of his older model. But he admitted to himself that he had never thought he would reach this point.
Hank dismissed the message, and his bird dropped like a rock into the middle of two hills. Fever mode was gone, and the encroaching night crept ever faster towards him.
Hank debated giving up. Letting the darkness send his bird into a permanent sleep. But he could not.
He ambled slowly, too slowly, over a hill, and then another. He didn’t look for the darkness that he was sure to come, he looked at the setting sun, he looked at his bird, and he looked at the next hill.
Hank heard the crowd around him, shouting encouragement, fear, anger at the night and his old phone. Screams of euphoria; Hank was over the last hill.
Hank’s tiny bird flew down the final ramp. Only then did Hank allow himself a glance at the darkness, it advanced ominously across the screen.
The shaded screen brushed his bird’s tail feathers, but it was too late; Hank was flying away. Into the eleventh island. Into the light.
Hank turned off his phone and straightened his back. He hadn’t realized how hunched his back had been.
His boss leaned over his cubicle wall. Hank hadn’t known he’d been watching.
“That must have been some kind of record right?” Hank’s boss asked.
“I guess so,” Hank said.
“Well,” Hank’s boss said, “let’s just try to remember to keep non-work activities to non-work times, okay?”
“Won’t happen again, boss.”
“Good talk.”
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