Fly

“You promise I won’t die?” She asked, her voice filled with fear. He replied: “I cannot promise anything, I only know how it is that I learned to fly”. She thought for a moment, it couldn’t be too hard now, could it?

Besides, why so afraid to die? Only a day ago she had wished that she might die, so full of despair and hopelessness, it sometimes seems the only way out of monotony. And yet, now, when a way out of this monotony was shown she cringed at the thought of danger. Danger of what? That it might be the end, she might die? How silly, how crazily silly of her.

All she ever wanted was to feel wind beneath her wings. Not that she had any wings, but sometimes she felt like she did have wings and wished to feel the wind beneath them. All she ever wanted was to soar on rising currants of warmer air and watch the people shrink until they were mere specks upon a ever-widening landscape. To soar through the fluffy-soft swirly clouds and above them. To find what was at the top of that mountain no one had ever come back from alive because the sides were too steep, too slick, with sheer drops and sudden chasms. The closest she could get to happiness was to climb this old watch tower in the middle of town and pretend the wind she felt was from flying.

So as far as anyone was concerned, the watchtower was hers. A place where she could think and be alone with her longings. But today she had found someone in her place. Someone with wings, someone who could fly.

She climbed up on top of the stone edge that ran around the place. Looking down made her dizzy, afraid. She shuddered, inched little farther from the edge. “But what if it doesn’t work? What if I die?” He shrugged, “I don’t know, I only know that I didn’t even want to fly. I wanted to die, but instead, I found these wings.” He sighed “I was so tired of the monotony of this life, felt that there was something else, I jumped, deciding even death would be a change and when I did I felt the air pushing past me, saw the horizon stretch before me and to my surprise a found in that moment I was flying.” She peeked again over the edge “But it’s so scary, so dizzy.”

 “Not if you aren’t afraid to die”

Really, she thought, if I weren’t so afraid it would be so easy, too easy. “Were you afraid?”

“Yes, it was hard, letting go of everything I knew, and jumping into the unknown. But also what I wanted most. I don’t think I wanted the death really, just… just the letting go. The jumping into the unknown, the finding something new.”

“I want to fly. I don’t want to let go of everything I know, everything that is comforting. Or maybe I do, I don’t know. I want to soar, to feel light.”

“You want to let go, it’s all weighing you down, these fears that are keeping you from jumping, they’re keeping you because if you jumped without letting go, it would weigh you and your wings couldn’t grow.”

“How do you know all this? If you came upon your wings by accident, how do you know this?”

He looked at her with eyes full of pain “I had hoped you wouldn’t ask me that.”

“It’s up to you whether you tell me or not, I’m not forcing you.” He shook his head “If you are to believe me, I should tell you.”

“The day I jumped from the tower, only one person saw me crawl to the edge. A random stranger, someone who thought it would be better if I had lived. He followed me, but before he could reach me, I fell. He ran to the edge, and as I found my wings, I looked up. He stared at me over the edge, and and I believe he envied me. I began to fly toward the mountains, but something made me look back. I saw something fall from the tower, and I flew toward him as fast as I could… I didn’t reach him in time. It was only after I learned to speak with their words that they told me, the oldest eagle, a wise bird who had learned a lot told me. If you leap without letting go, the weight will keep you from finding your wings.” A lonely tear ran down his face and fell onto a stone. “I feel like I killed him in a way”

She shook her head “He chose to leap, the same as you. You didn’t make him.”

“I may have given him a false belief”

“If you did, it was unknowingly. Not even you knew you’d grow those wings”

He looked at her pleadingly “Please don’t risk it, how could I bear another death from my wings?” How could he? She wondered. And yet, here it was, within her reach. Freedom… and all she had to do was let go.

“And if I do?”

“Then I’d try to catch you if you fell too long, but my wings cannot really bear much weight besides their own”

The sun broke through the clouds and through the window she could see a deep forever blue. The forever blue where she could go if she let go. The air shimmered with the radiance of the golden hour, and she thought the grey mountains in the distance looked a little less grey. Looking down, the rusty color of the clay roofs mingled with the brown-yellow of the thatched ones. The wind begged her, promising to lift her, and she inched a little closer to the edge.

“Please don’t”

“I have to, how else can I find my wings?”

She breathed in the sweet early autumn air and let go… of everything she’d ever known and of the fear of losing it and fell.

And rose and soared in the beckoning breeze.

“The clouds are a so cold and damp up here!”

He smiled “They look better from down below, don’t they?”

She laughed “Down there the look so soft, up here they’re just cold fog!”

And so they are.