Icarus can't see the sun anymore. 
How many days has it been since he's seen the sun?
In the prison tower, there is a window. One window. It's up high. He used to try to reach it. He used to scrabble at the smooth walls, jumping and reaching. He never touched the sill. He never pulled himself up to see the sun. It's been months.
The window lets in light, lets in air. Icarus knows it's there, but it's so small and so high. A square of blue light from the blue sky. He looks up at the place where he knows the window is, and he wishes he can see the sun.
By now, it's been months since he's seen the sun. 
Icarus' hands have begun to grow idle in the months he's spent in the tower. But his father never wastes a moment. He draws, plans, designs, invents, struggles, fails, tries again. 
Icarus looks at his father who is sleeping. He's slumped over his desk. His shoulders rise and fall. He still holds a hammer limply in his palm. Icarus wonders if his father misses the sun. He must! Who wouldn't? But his father is so steady, so silent. Icarus can never tell.
"Keep working, Icarus," his father keeps saying. "Stay steadfast and keep working."
To what aim? Icarus doesn't know. He can't see a way out. He tries to trust. His heart twists, contracts. It hurts to trust when so much of him doesn't want to.
There are no more candles. Icarus sits in the dark. 
"Melt the candles, Icarus," his father said a few months back. 
"Do you have a plan?" Icarus asked. 
"I need the wax," was the response. 
There are no more forks. Icarus eats with his hands.
"Pile the utensils for me. Anything metal you can find," his father said. 
Icarus didn't ask why. There must be a plan. There must be a purpose. Icarus trusts. He trusts his father like he trusts that outside these thick walls, the sun continues to rise and set. 
There is a part of him that wants to believe the sun has stopped rising. A part of him that thinks if he cannot see it, then it must not happen. 
Icarus runs his hand over the waxy feather wings, the machines his father built. Wax wings. Icarus wants to scoff. Icarus wants to disbelieve. Wax wings might work. Yes, they might fly. But how would they leave this prison tower? The window is too small for birds to come in. The window will be absurdly small if they try to escape through it. 
"Trust, Icarus," his father keeps saying. 
Icarus knows. Icarus knows he must trust or he will give up hope completely. His father trusts. His father trusts so much that he will find a way out. Icarus wishes he could trust like that. 
It's dark, nighttime, and Icarus' father is sleeping. Icarus can't sleep. Icarus is a bird in a cage. Icarus paces and paces until he is so exhausted, he lies down on the ground and sleeps without a blanket. 
When he wakes up, the light from the small window is grayish blue.
It bathes him in light. 
Bathes him?
Icarus sits up. He blinks. There is no window anymore. There's just a hole as tall and wide as his father, a hole gaping wide like a wound and below them is the ocean. And above them are dark clouds. 
Icarus stands up. 
"Father?" he says. 
His father holds a hammer. Sweat glistens on his temple. His face is dusty. 
"I told you we'd find a way out," he says. 
Icarus is speechless. He looks down at the rolling waves. The gray sky. The sun is behind the clouds. Icarus knows. Icarus trusts. 
His father straps the first pair of wings onto his son's back. Leather from their old belts bind the wings to his arms. His father ties it nimbly. It's tight so it won't fall off. His father keeps talking, but Icarus isn't listening. The clouds are parting. They're separating from a wall of clouds into big, billowing pillows of clouds. There are bits of blue sky in between. And then the sun. 
Icarus' mouth drops open. 
His father is tying on his wings. "I'll go first," he says. "See how I do it."
Icarus nods, and watches as his father jumps out. The wings beat steadily. Like a heart. His father hovers close to the water. 
Icarus feels the sun. It tickles his arms, touches his cheek. He loves to be in the warmth of its gaze.
Icarus sees the sun. The sun glimmers in his vision. Icarus wants fly to the sun. 
Icarus wants.
Icarus jumps. 
Icarus flies. He flies higher and higher. 
"Icarus!" his father yells. 
Icarus doesn't hear. He flies higher and higher. 
"Father," he yells above the roaring wind, "I see the sun!"