Icarus Retold

Norman Vincent Peale once said, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.” Little did he know how suffocating it’d be to land. 

Icarus had gotten his namesake from the famous myth. Yes, the guy who fell from the sky. No, his parents don’t hate him and/or want him to have the same demise. Or at least he had hoped that they didn’t. They named him Icarus because Icarus had flown toward the sun; but it seems that they had censored the part of the story where Icarus falls miserably to his death. 

His parents had always wanted the best for him (or at least that’s what they always said), and always recited that specific quote to him. They probably read it somewhere online, where it was badly photoshopped onto a nature background in Comic Sans. They probably didn’t even know who said it. Just thought: Oh, pretty. I’m going to use this to “motivate” my children. 

It was senior year, and college applications were due soon. The high school hallways reeked of stress and Axe body spray. Every single body in the hallway was antsy and afraid that their mask would be stripped from their person. Insecurities bleeding out from underneath. They hid it well though. They hid it with gossip and giggles. 

Icarus, on the other hand, had nothing to hide. Or, let me rephrase that, he didn’t seem like he had anything to hide. For all four years of his high school life, he had straight A’s, was fairly active in most extracurriculars and sports, started several clubs, and only made a few acquaintances in order to network. Notice how I didn’t say friends. 

On one of the last days of senior year, Icarus had a final. Mr. Martin had said that this final would be the hardest test in all of their academic careers. Mr. Martin could feel the anxiety levels rise in the room. Each student immediately started to pull out their calculators as subtly as possible in attempts to calculate their grades without the final and their grades with the final failed. The outcome was not looking good for any of them. Except Icarus. Icarus sat still in his seat, calm. He seemed to be calm. At least, he was the calmest in the room. We could tell though. We could tell that he was just as nervous as the rest of us. 

That’s why we asked him to do it. 

Failing this test would strip away his mask, his entire identity of being a perfect student, cause his parents to be ashamed. That day, he was fidgeting with his fingers, some classmates theorized he was calculating his grade, but mentally. They were right. Immediately after class, I asked Icarus to join my “study group”. He had claimed that he already had one, but we knew that it was all lies. He had no friends. Just acquaintances in the millions of extracurriculars he was in, and none would be bold enough to study with him. I told him what we were doing right off the bat, it was wrong to keep it a secret. We knew he wouldn’t tell anyone, and we were sure that he would agree to it. 

That night Icarus went home. His parents didn’t ask him how his day was, just if there were any tests, what grades he got, if he had heard back from colleges yet, etc. Of course, you may know the answer to those questions. Icarus didn’t tell them about the test he might fail or the heist his new friends would pull to steal the test scores. It didn’t matter to his parents anyway. As long as he shot for the moon. He would eventually land amongst the stars. 

Before the heist, he told me how his parents often told the story of how they escaped their home country to achieve a better life for Icarus there. They compared themselves to Daedalus. They insisted that they had paved the way for Icarus, and all his successes were due to them. Unlike Daedalus however, they never warned Icarus to not fly too close to the sun. They encouraged it. Maybe that’s why Icarus did what he did. Maybe that’s why things happened the way they did. However, they’d never admit that they drove their son to this. When we did accuse them, they simply broke down and said,

“We just lost our son.”

The night before the test, Icarus, a group of five others, and I broke into the school, into Mr. Martin’s room, and stole the test answers. It was easy, the principal’s daughter managed to snatch a key, I hatched a plan, and the other four were mainly to provide the front of a study group. It was all going smoothly until the police came (We later found out that it was the principal’s daughter that called them. Didn’t want to sully daddy’s name if she’d been found out). Naturally, we all panicked. We all split up. Except for me and Icarus, we stuck together. I think he only stayed with me because I had the answers, and I was right. Once we got up a flight of stairs in the school, he tried to take the answers from me. We had a little scuffle, and he fell. Icarus fell.

That night, I think Icarus flew too close to the sun. His parents encouraged their son to aim high. Maybe that’s why Icarus did what he did. Maybe that’s why things happened the way they did. Maybe it was the quote that they saw somewhere, badly photoshopped with a nature background in Comic Sans. Maybe it was Mr. Martin, who lied. The test would have been the easiest test in Icarus’ entire academic career. How do I know this? I remember. I saw him at the bottom of that flight of stairs, with the test answers in hand. He looked at them and smiled. He would have passed, officer. I’ll admit that I stole the test answers. I’ll admit that I broke into the school; but I didn’t kill Icarus. 

Icarus simply fell.