Flight

In response to Writer's Island prompt on April 10 2008

I must be 4 years old when I first saw that flight of stairs. I was in Kindergarten and I noticed the spiral staircase which used to take the kids to the 1st grade and 2nd grade. The other classes were located in the next building in the same campus. I had seen older kids sliding down instead of taking the stairs down. It was a scary thing to do and had seen them getting scolded by the teachers but it surely seemed fun. I had an urge to slide down myself but knew that I was small and was afraid of being caught by a teacher. We used to live on first floor (ground floor in asian context) and did not have to climb stairs to reach home. Later, I did live in a second floor (first floor in asian context) apartment where I needed to climb the stairs to reach home. Now I live in a home which has internal stairs to lead us to the bedrooms. These stairs are wooden and frail and I am too scared that I might break them by just climbing up and down, forget the sliding. But I did experience a different way of coming down the stairs last year. I did not slide down. I tumbled down, not once, not twice but thrice down the stairs.