The Fall

Do you want to fly away? Imagine you stand before an enormous plane. Your sweaty hand clenches a ticket as you wonder if you should run like the ink that now coats your palm. It has just stopped raining and small droplets are finding their escape only to be fried on the hot pavement below. As you climb aboard the monstrous machine it sings to you and you consider for just a moment that your lungs now depend on the exhale of wires and the mechanics of man. You feel fear pinch your back as your eyes meet a glowing exit sign. You consider the road home but remember it has turned to dust. You take a final breath as the wheels leave the earth and you fall into dream.

Slumber takes you to the deepest depths and you feel heavy as you groggily resurface and the light creeps into your eyes. Lips flutter near your ears expelling whispers but you find yourself completely alone. This is your aircraft and you are the captain, destination, unknown. You lie stuck somewhere between yesterday and tomorrow and need to decide if you will fly, land or fall.

You stand and walk over to the emergency exit. You look toward the future and listen to your past and rip open the door. The wind punches you in the stomach as you stare down at your naked toes dancing over the edge. What lies 42,000 feet below? Will you face it or forever fall? You flash a wicked smile and then you are gone.

Shadows surround as you begin plummeting toward the earth. The air dark and frigid roars like a waterfall as it pushes you deeper and deeper down. The dark only broken by the movie of your life projected on tiny clouds. First, the pain, the scenes of regret and great loss. You feel yourself grow solid much like a lake becomes hardened by the frost and desperately you yearn for the thaw. Your stare unwavering until the last picture fades and find yourself thankful for the days where the sun was swallowed by the gloom for it was in these moments you remembered the beauty of the light.

You are falling faster now, the happy times are mere flashes and are just beyond your grasp. You wonder why you didn’t wade in those moments, soak them in, before they were gone. You curse yourself for finding perspective only when the final page was turned and ponder why you bathed in torture while happiness danced at your feet.

You close your eyes, open your arms and welcome the fast approaching earth. You send a farewell kiss to who you used to be and that’s when the unthinkable happens.

You awaken and begin again.