Dafoid's Musings

If you are every thing you show and tell,
A demographic under mind control,
Your life is all you own, an empty shell,
Which bares a materialistic soul:

You are the laptop purchased back in June
(It’s new, it’s fast, it will impress your friend!);
You are the wheels you cannot pay off soon
(Too sporty for your needs, but let’s pretend).

You are cologne, a bookshelf, workplace ties,
Fine real estate, a cross, a missing shoe.
You are your jokes and words told in disguise,
But they are too misleading to detail you.

And when I lie awake now to atone
For things not bought or sold, but things unseen,
I ask if all we are is all we own
And all we’ve done, so little lies between.

The thought helps greater minds to prove it wrong,
Because we sense the thought just like the stuff,
But thoughts are parts of us, and so belong,
Like what we do, if but that is enough.

It’s why we cannot understand our peers;
It’s why the weak believe in things and cash,
So try to beat the Joneses over years,
Invest themselves in goods which rust and crash.

Too bad the Joneses live without a life.
Too bad thoughts do no good when kept in store,
And need a proof through venerable strife
To show we’re something else, or some thing more.

I’d like to be referred as ‘loser,’
An unkind term in many circles
Which I embrace without sarcasm,
But rather open ears and closed mouth-

For losers live as scythes among screws:
As outcasts, not as lethal lepers;
As tacit tools who take the title,
Or bawdy bugs who bellow vengeance.

And better tool than sorrow, I think,
And set apart for happy labor.
Some tools are meant for such conditions:
A field day, not an easy struggle.

Yet, sadly, loser’s harsh to many,
Among the many never mentioned.
The sprites or maggots murmur labels,
But would not dare define a loser.

-Too judgmental
-Addicted
-Driven to distraction
-Formalistic and lazy
-Thinks in clichés
-Less empathetic system of morals
-Wastes time in dreams
-Lapses in thought
-Too anxious
-Loses points in schoolwork
-Uninvolved, not observant
-Caught in childish delusions, age seven
-Forgetful of errors
-Didn’t open door for one person
-Has sugars and fats now and then
-Lies to himself and others
-Disgrace to the extended family
-Too unique in interests; goes against the grain
-Yet maybe just acting out
-Hasn’t reconciled childhood with the future
-Mistakes in handwriting
-Sleepwalks every now and then
-Can’t control behavior
-Doesn’t know whether to pay credence to these criticisms
-Excessively criticizes own faults

Though bayou water may lie still,
Three decades here have come to show
We’d rather let our bonds turn ill
To settle feuds from long ago.

The preaching family split apart
To preach their own revered decree,
To win a war and sometimes thwart,
All due to base psychology.

One built a warehouse by pine strands,
And claimed to house some plumbing flue,
When everyone knows he demands
His neighbor leave, and kindness, too.

But it seems strange to forge a wall
And block a neighbor’s line of sight
When neither note the friendship’s fall,
So nothing comes of boasting might.

Yet also strange is how he made
This soothing pretense for the crown;
Out there, it takes more work betrayed
To build walls up than tear walls down!

Over my career in the most demanding and vital branches of national defense, I believe I’ve made many contributions to the security and well-being of all my constituents, no matter what age, gender, race, or lifestyle. Each night I fall asleep comfortable in the assumption that, at home, I’ve done the best I could to place my people at an advantageous position to usher in a bright new era. Whether by brevity, the goodness within me, or some other positive trait, the nation has been sheltered from many threats, both external and internal. Early on, right after I transitioned from an understudy to a director in an intelligence sector which must remain unnamed, the internal factors and movements which threatened to betray our harmonic way of life appeared ambiguous; however, after a single case, submerged somewhere in a bunker under reams of memos and documents, my goals clarified and simplified.

Among us lurks an almost literal cancer which aims to alter the way we think, the way we speak, the way we worship, the way we rule, and the way we idealize. These time-tested hypotheses worked so well in our youth and in our less-than-pensive collective imagination, yet erode day by day, victims of the carcinogens. The pedestrian you passed earlier today may have schemed to overthrow or begin anew a dark age for our nation. The pedestrian may have wanted to bleed you dry and dine on your moral flesh. At the beginning of my career, I recited in my head the warnings distributed in even earlier days: thieves, draped in red and hailing from foreign lands, robbed the very essence of liberty and freedom which strengthened our country thusly. They evaporated in the daytime, but possessed a poor citizen’s body and namesake. They sapped our government back in the day, but we uncloaked them after their fall and discovered that we shared moral meat. Since the state defended the day once more, we never saw any reason to downsize our patriotic soul. A new generation of villains prowled the night, and with this new generation, I could witness firsthand every single horror.

In this setting, I came upon the case of an unsavory Mr. K. When our faithful police brought him in for questioning, other agents presented me files upon files of evidence regarding his subversion. The basic profile alone offered volumes of information we could deduce about his nature and personality. His childhood lived on through only spotty records, often implying a transient lifestyle, with homes up strange alleys in various regions. His academics appeared fair enough, fluctuating whenever he transferred schools. Grades tended to stabilize with high marks, although dipped three times for reasons we haven’t fully explained. He graduated, went to community college for a semester, then moved out and bolted toward a night shift job at a nearby gas station.

Since then, we’ve made a nice plot of his dealings, his curiosities, his mail in and out, in the same way that we’ve looked at so many other infidels. His patterns, though, drew our attention soon enough.

I looked down upon him once, in the brightly lit concrete block beneath my office-the latter, a tidy corner bursting with papers and memos and innocent little plants and knickknacks to suit the décor, all hovering, almost, in the frantic air between the desk above and the nervous, isolated, stir-crazy table below. Said table, my other desk, chained Mr. K in steel restraint absentmindedly; a craftsman forged the chains alongside many other nameless ones in some distant mill, and they held a profound indifference toward the criminal’s pensiveness. Unless he grew frantic; then, they rattled merrily. Mr. K had a slender, slightly sickly body, with baggy clothes, odd, pale skin, unkempt hair, but no identifiable cause of poor health.

He grew frantic first when I stepped toward the table, likely considering an alibi for his aggression. He must have gained one-lost one-then settled into a familiar cycle of thought, the whole while practically pleading innocence.

“So,” I said, “you’ve met a little roadblock in your endeavors.”

“But I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Sure.” I summoned my briefcase, placed it on the table facing his bound fists, and slid out a plain manila file. My personal tonic against the poison which circulated throughout the system and turned cell against cell, brother against brother, citizen against citizen. Here, the file contained the condensed backlog of his shady dealings, along with rather damning personal evidence to break his back.

I led this Mr. K character through the basic elements of his profile to convince him. His full name. His age. Every address we could find. His parents’ information. His identity numbers. His close friends. His magazine subscriptions. His favorite color. We both liked blue, I mentioned as an aside. We had something in common.

“Given the sum of our knowledge, how did you ever suspect you would escape for long?”

“I would like to speak to a lawyer.” His face, strangely youthful yet anemic, lent a stern warning. He fidgeted, expressed anxiety, grew still, and assumed a marble pose which ignored the gentle tintinnabulation of his bondage.

“Quaint. But you can’t tell us to offer you the very right of sorts which you wish to take away. Besides, are you going to tattle on the government?”

Mr. K never broke poise.

“Alright, don’t fret. We just need a confession.”

“A confession to what?”

My mind began to pace around a padded skull. If you offer the cancer a single shred of liberty, you might as well throw water onto a grease fire. You try to be kind, but the malevolence gobbles up your offering and hungers for more. You’ve become a jester. And I cannot stand being a jester in someone else’s court.

Force could wait.

“To your planning of an attack against this proud nation’s own people.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He bore a nervous grin now, expecting to win the to-and-fro through sheer denial and word-tinkering.

“Bullshit. We’ve been monitoring your every movement.”

“Then I guess it’s an honest mistake on your part.”

This did not bode well for Mr. K. You never lie to someone who knows more than you, and never play the fool when your rival can see your hand. A terrible bluff. Anyone could call it. I paced laps around the table for a moment as the guards followed my path. Mr. K stared a thousand yards into the concrete ahead. After several rounds, I grew bored and returned to his file, withdrawing a set of papers.

“Well, we have the proof right here.” I read aloud the core evidence for our charges: his purchases, his networks, his library history. Everything we could account for to sculpt our case study rested within a couple sheets of paper.

He was a typical miser. While no economy would interfere with his selfishness-after all, to each his own-his money never went into the trap sectors. Few services, loaning agencies, or lobbyists profited from his purchases. Most consisted of food, rent, and some bills, paid on time and in full. Like filling a thimble with water and calling it a glass. The unaccounted dollars vanished, though judging by snapshots of his home, garage sales and used book sales bartered for the remainder of his paycheck.

He socialized on occasion, never maturing a large phone bill but keeping in touch with his parents and schoolmates at times. For such a case study, we expect more information from online activity and networking thanks to some generous ‘peacemaking’ a while back. These connections appeared absent, excluded from his online activity.

He was a thinking man! He checked out everything from The Communist Manifesto to The Wealth of Nations. Never mind that they’re opposites in our book. Never mind that the Koran and the Bible, two particular favorites of his, preached to entirely different audiences. Never mind that On Thermonuclear War would be the nadir of anyone’s earthly delights. There’s no empathy. For whatever reason Mr. K borrowed these volumes, the binding fed something deep, too deep. He sporadically owed late fees regardless of the length of the book. We could figure no reason for his lapses in meticulous behavior-nothing through nurture.

With so many holes in his record, the major points only served to highlight how this deviant could endanger the rest of our homeland’s people. We know that the threat of terrorism constantly wages war against us, and manifests itself in, not the average Joe and Jill or the controlled deviant, deluded into believing that he or she is unique, but rather in the fringe. These citizens, while unassuming in several ways, carry a vast ideological burden, and turn over ideas every waking hour unless distracted. The quirks we found in Mr. K match the quirks of the fringe. Given that the terrorist threat grows whenever no one pays attention and must be prevalent, any leads into these quirks would accomplish our altruistic mission.

And Mr. K was the perfect lead.

I revealed everything to the little man.

“How does any of this make me a terrorist-none of this instantiates anything!”

“Ah, but it’s abnormal. And abnormality just like this is associated with the very deviousness that we’re trying to stop. How do you link all of these quirks? Coincidence?”

“Maybe I reject what you call normal. Maybe I would rather be pitiful, surrounded by books and ideas, than part of your world.”

“But it’s a sad to be sad. You have to have ulterior motives in order to look like you do.”

“Your argument has no cogency.”

“In plain English, please. Explain.”

“I appreciate concepts, and would rather focus on that side of my life than on whatever else you think isn’t active enough. This doesn’t implicate me as a terrorist.”

“What concepts? What do you think, with all your tinkering, is the solution to our problems?”

“Your problems are fleeting. I voraciously weigh alternatives. I’m not stuck between two options you give me, some dialectic in politics, waiting for someone to propose a solution that profits some nameless industry. I guess this is what you want me to think about?”

“Not at all,” Mr. K. “We only need the opinions and solutions of our countrymen. After all, this is a democracy. You have influence.”

“But I don’t know how to solve your problems.”

“Why? You’ve considered every option. You’re a phony if you’re using that as an excuse for your devious planning.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s true or not. I can make several good speculations, but the closer I look, the more empty everything looks. Like an atom. Everything’s just hooked together by what we assume, making the structures that make us breathing, functioning humans, but somewhere down there is a mysterious solid mass. A reminder that we’re conscious, that numbers and logic hardly lead us astray, and that between all the bold metaphysical and theological theories out there, we can consider possibilities of something greater than ourselves.”

“Irrelevant. You’re able to wake up every morning in reality. You rely on a million factors to make it to your job and run your errands.”

“Then I think you should reconsider these, sir, and the whole scheme you have going on here.”

“Which only an attacker suggests. Your crazy, stupid hobbies really have contributed to your scheme, a far worse one than our national security.”

“My schemes haven’t abducted people and placed them in underground rooms. I just do as I please, and just because fewer people go down this track, it isn’t the right or wrong choice, much less terrorism. You need evidence as solid as the walls of this room to interrogate me or bring me to trial. Until then, you’d best serve your country by letting me loose so I can be as counterproductive as I want. Your take on liberty isn’t important. I simply need mine.”

“That’s rather cold.”

“I’d rather be cold than burnt out. We can’t go farther than we are right now in the discussion if you keep on repeating whatever you’re told.”

At this point, in a flash, the interrogation reminded me of a philosophy they taught along the meandering road to becoming a warden of justice, or on the lower tracks at times. I think they called their version pragmatism, but I always figured that whatever they mentioned was too soft. Maybe better for more permissible people, the poor souls who would have utilized it against Mr. K earlier in the debate, but not as sound in mind as I am. Sound enough in mind, actually, to take the administration’s next step in treatment against someone less sound in mind.

My prescription slept on my belt-an old nightstick. Out of admiration, I named it ‘The Shaft.’ I gave the fortunate the Shaft, you see. I polished my Shaft weekly and treated it with care, despite the forced service I dealt upon subordinates whenever the need arose. Such as, I suspected, now.

“You’ve left us very few options, sir, in the defense of the people.”

I demanded that the guards ready their keys and prepare for departure. Mr. K rationalized to the best of his ability, and concluded that he succeeded in convincing us. You could see it in his face, I suppose. Relief, pleasure, and thankfulness, all from whatever animalistic compounds drove his predictions. I walked behind him and administered a high-dose prescription on the back of his skull.

He laid his head on the table as with a conscious effort. The blood didn’t faze me so much, nor anyone else tacitly studying the interrogation; most matted in his hair, and the rest glided down his cheekbones onto the table or down his shirt collar. Drops pooled toward the end of his stay, pushing some to drip off the table and onto his jeans. Practicality rescued us once again; the level table could be wiped down, and a sanguine spot on black polyester pales in comparison to a corpse.

The plot was foiled, and the perpetrator was treated. He received the most efficient treatment our administration could offer so that everyone else could sleep soundly.

…

Our department placed his “have you seen me?” portrait alongside several others down the hallway. His mother eventually began asking questions, but we did a brave job. Anyone could have strutted into his damp little apartment and concluded that he’d left suddenly without returning. So far, no neighboring counties have reported his missing vehicle, and his memory has begun to fade among the bereaved. Mr. K couldn’t justify his defense, so the follow-through was only natural, and defeated the inevitable assaults on our freedom. A patriotic success in my book.

When I feel down due to wintertime doldrums, a flat life, or misfortune, I lean back and recall the heroism I’ve performed. My history has become a cloud of kindliness that follows me around, for no matter what charity I perform, as long as it isn’t overtly grotesque, I can relax knowing that I’ve made a positive contribution toward the state’s security.

Thus entails my personal defense of the state. I truly believe that our way of life contributes to the well-being of each and every person thriving in this great land. Without our administration’s intervention, wherever it may be-from defeating insidious attacks against the economy, our social values, our culture, or even our existence-we would trickle our essence out onto the world. And, of course, nothing good can come of that. We must be a beacon to be idolized, not fodder for the more lowly humans. I love liberty and our livelihood, not outright anarchy.

In conclusion, I hope you, too, can see my standpoint and all the goodness for which I stand.

While sleeping, eyes forced open still,
Enjoying dull, elusive highs,
I peered past privilege to fulfill
An urge for what life signifies.

Just canter into lucid dream,
The dark side all our dead depart,
And watch your latent joy redeem
What’s pure and tender in your heart.

I took a gamble. I drowsed off.
I yearned for flawless lands alone,
And hoped to cross routine sendoff,
Thought how they differed from my own…

…

Debts earned, debts paid
Another week yet
On nearby roads
Hauling boxes

No light above (that we can see)
No memory (of recent time)

An alibi of snakes in glass,
Their serpent streams in silent jails.
Not human ones. Don’t fret their fates.
It’s time to move to other scenes.

Gas station bleakness switching seats,
A demon prowled the field beyond
By tricks your parents play sometimes.
Another jolt in drifting states.

And in the tower, bricks and steel collide,
A slip of paper thumping pavement hymns
Sends cash meandering far down the stairs,
Reminding what illusions prey in sight.

As the pale hall thunders
And you hence go elsewhere
In the rambling changes
That spice daily resting-

At once, I realized I was asleep,
That this world was just as fake as the last.
I could do anything until sunrise,
To love and learn and grieve and be at peace.

I cheered and leaped up in the air,
This empty sleeper made aware.

The magic seen, the battle won,
I flew and turned ‘round toward the sun-

A hand swept in,
Took all away-

…

So my home’s comfort didn’t leave.
It grabbed me from dreams through deafness
By rapping at the door to grieve
O’er silent lucid restlessness.

Or my own mind played surrogate,
And let not this odd psychonaut
Adore one more distant secret.
From such fuzz, I remembered naught.

So I, awake, could not explore
Far past the edge I ran aground.
And so I missed the chance to soar.
And that was all I ever found.

Some time ago, a son and father came;
I hardly met them, they hardly met me.
We meddled with ourselves nearly the same,
And thought it best to let the other be.
Yet now I ponder who they could have been,
A pair of friends or foes prowling our house,
Untouched treasures disguised in human skin,
Or just dull, daily bodies, like one louse.
The son grew ill the day they bid farewell,
And left me wonder if he’d laugh-or die!
But in the end, everything turned out well,
Unlike my pal in health who left awry.
Their stay told naught, and might have stayed that way,
No matter our habits which never stray.

You’re not the caustic glow of screens,
You speak not your title;
You’re not the ghost in the machines,
You breathe not your essence.

Much more goes into one person
Than the sum of its parts;
Relief comes as helpful action
To break same-colored days.

But minds aren’t lives, just chemistry
To tell us what we want;
At day’s end, cycles break briefly
To show us what lies there.

So we can paint and we can sing,
Connect to worlds beyond;
But when we’ve overcome dreaming,
We’ll see our work dissolve.

Despite our mistakes, we have won,
Whether king or pauper;
We’ll meet at pearly gates as one,
Whether sloth or artist.

So up or down, noisy or dull,
The cycle mends all wrongs-
Not morbid, just somewhat neutral,
Unreal in its own way.

I once knew a man who could fly. He, Tomas, only ever told a few people; I don’t even think his family suspected it, his family had more than a hunch or two that their baby boy possessed great skill. That would just devastate them. As far as I knew, he’s the lone person who discovered the grace, save for anyone else who confined the ability deep inside themselves.

He confessed not long before his passing, relaxed on a sofa in my cellar. The biome could have brought it out-full 70’s orange and brown, thick, gaudy mustard carpet, incense trailing upward on strategic countertops and corners. The room felt a slight chill from the late autumn weather outside, almost undetectable far from the windows, but almost like frigid radiation near the escapes and cracks in the walls.

He blurted it without provocation in the thick, musty atmosphere, clearly after forethought.

“What?”

“It’s true! Here…”

He stood up, lopsided as always, and levitated off the carpet, as if propped by invisible wings. The incense didn’t stir but for the faintest ambient whisper, even as he rose above the coffee table and paused near the ceiling, looking down, arms to his sides, propped like a limp marionette.

I stared up for a moment, but greater things have surprised me before. I could accept it. The fantastic is bound to appear sooner or later.

“Seeing is believing, I guess.”

He looked relieved, then came down onto the carpet and took a bow, the sole disturbance in the air blowing when he crashed on the couch again.

“Okay, how the hell is that possible?”

“Well, it’s an interesting story, Louie. Sort of a long one, too. I guess I’ve never quite told it before, so it may start off rocky.”

“We’ve got all night, and I can’t think of anything better to do.”

“Alright, then…”

…

I think it began when I was thirteen years old or so. You know how you have the strangest dreams every once in a while, just out of nowhere, and you have no idea why? A little like that. One night, I experienced a really deep one-one of those dreams that cause you to write treatises or change your lifestyle sometimes. It had chase elements, but here, I also pursued in the hazy dream world. Pursued what, I don’t know. Anyway, the push and pull factors flung me off a cliff by the water, with sharks and jagged rocks underneath. I overshot the cove with the secret locked up in labyrinthine chambers. When you make mistakes in dreams, they always seem to come back and haunt you in the worst ways. I wonder what the impact is, whether symbolic or disguised by my ego’s muck.

I yelled and struggled against the sea-mist, and right before hitting the surface, returned to my bedroom from the land so far away, entangled in my sheets. For a while, I felt some relief upon escaping whatever horrors resided there; after the period of uncertainty which follows every awakening, however, I realized I wasn’t resting on my bed. I turned and twisted a little more to untangle myself. When my sheets fell, I spun around as you would to find a more comfortable resting position, but in doing so, saw my bed at arm’s length below me.

I panicked. I stretched my limbs and tried to shuffle back to my sheets somehow, and hit my head hard on the frame in doing so. Thrashing around, though, eventually helped me to grab the post on the edge and lead me down. I bent over, willed myself toward the tile, and settled on the floor. Disturbed no longer, I stood up, sensed that I had landed beyond a reasonable doubt, and did my best to sleep for the few hours that remained.

Unlike so many others nowadays, I was fortunate enough in living close to open fields and terrain, so I seized the opportunity to make good on the skill I chanced upon. I forget the date-springtime, but a dry period, and not particularly damp, either-when I sped off on bike to the edge of town and began flight practice.

In a wooded section near the wheat acres, unsure whether people lurked in their own business, I tested the talent for the first time, but had no idea where to begin. I figured after minutes of wandering around that anything which came naturally before should do so again. So I found a low-lying branch, scrambled on top, and steadied myself on the rough trunk. I possessed no fear of heights, just impact-you know what I mean. It’s not the fall that kills you, but the crunch and splatter. It took a while, then, for me to take the leap, not consider what I saw, and will myself to stay aloft. When the fall took longer than I expected, I released my breath and saw the world lie still. Invisible wings held me aloft.

Flight is one thing, but control is something else altogether! I focused with all my might on hovering where I was, fending off any mute urges to drag me in one direction or another. After more struggling with myself and finding balance, I could relax and find that I stayed at comfortable reach from the branch. Quivers shook, but little by little faded away into the forest. Now steady, I willed myself up through an open patch in the leafy ceiling. The rise took some nervous time, but soon enough, I balanced above the canopy.

From here, I took off. I felt thankful, first, that no one mingled in the nearby fields or bothered to glance up, everyone leagues away too engrossed in their own business. I wondered when the wings would fail and I would fall, but it never happened. Like the security and affirmations of science. The landscape was too gentle to judge-here, the rolling hills and patchwork foliage could never deceive me. Just people and the art of flying. I ramble on every time I talk to myself about the first time. Do you think it’s comparable to anything you’ve experienced before? Poetry! No free-fall, no apparatus. Simple flight. Ineffable to the extreme. Silent hovering over a crystal land. If I were a writer, I’d think of all the right metaphors-

Tomas breathed out, then cracked a weary smile. The kind that comes with immense pleasure.

-Yeah, like that. You never know what you’re missing until you experience the thrill. A bit of a chill, too. Not only with seeing the world you’ve lived in as a globe from above, a fragile toy, but also how you’ve…well…become a god. I think the guys from antiquity called it apotheosis. Yeah. You’ve won everything, and the globe and your life and all of humanity looks so depressing and so happy. So temporary, so pained and priceless. It’s one step closer to understanding how Earth and all of us really are-but I don’t think you could describe it with words. Maybe music-perfect, orgasmic music. Flight is a little like music. Neither can be analyzed. Maybe the music would have some sort of sweeping tone as you rose, with chimes in the background and the forlorn, crystalline, precious note or two playing softly. Euphoric from every angle.

Nothing compares to the first time you take yourself out of this world!

I cracked the mute enigma, I guess. And since I left the Earth and marveled at the countryside, I decided I should get to real flying.

I took off, swooped around, and the rest became my private pride.

…

Time helped some parts. I gained control; I learned all the maneuvers before a year passed, and by scanning the ground from above, I knew where to fly and where not to fly. I bought goggles to fend off the wind on my eyes, really nice ones with a snazzy pattern, blue and red. My parents saw me fiddling with them and chastised me for spending money on such a silly thing. There were no pools here! We hardly went swimming, anyway. We haven’t had much since the depression started several years ago. I apologized for my blatant stupidity in their eyes but never returned them.

I pressed upward, forgetting just how quickly the air fades until I neared the sun. I couldn’t pump my imaginary wings, like if they just fell apart up in the thin, bright atmosphere. I blacked out but re-emerged high enough to save myself.

I wandered into neighboring provinces, skimming the upper band. The mountains farther from home looked like molehills instead of wrinkled golem magic. When nobody prowled, I summited several and took moments to admire the Earth as I would have before flight. The valleys no longer impressed me as much, but the scenery kept the frozen form my entire life, and I’m happy to say that it still does in the distant reaches.

I wondered, when the novelty first started to become the same old day in and day out, how I could use flight to my terrestrial advantage. No one could see me fly, of course. My parents already rejected the goggles; imagine what they would say when I used them! If anyone else found out, the water would break, and soon enough everyone would come to marvel at the freaky bird. Too much attention ruins your art. Then the government and the media would come into town, and who knows what they’d do for the greater good. For your sake.

No. I knew I could fly, and that was ‘good’ enough, even if my ego craved love.

A war broke out in neighboring nations. I figured it would be perfect direction, and so hoped to enlist. I was underage, but not by much, which barred me too early for my liking. What better service could there be than to covertly gather aerial intelligence, or help drop some supplies? Maybe the military would accept my talents. Decades later, I’m thankful they didn’t. All I did to help our side was take a camera with fresh film across the front, snap a few shots of what I thought could be useful, and anonymously mail the pictures to whatever bases operated around here. They never broadcasted if the pictures meant anything. Even today, I wonder if they made a difference, or if we’d talk under another flag in the same house and in the same moody weather.

Schoolwork increased later on, when my capacity for learning decreased, much like everyone else. Time accelerated, and if my grounded childhood didn’t sever its connection the very moment I began to float off, the memories faded despite my best efforts to keep them locked up in the attic. The sand sifted through the planks and drifted down the floors below to God-knows-where. Whenever I needed a reminder that I was someone special in the deluge of paper, I would take my homework to a mountaintop and try my best within patience. Flight became a routine medium of travel, like walking, but faster and riskier. Before long, I graduated. It reminded me that I’ve spent about five years on my regular work and up in the clouds, which depressed me a little. What had I learned in the skies? What had I done?

I made the transition into college. I had my wits around me, even though my intelligence wasn’t exceptional, just above-average. I kept my options as realistic and down-to-earth as possible, a quality my family pushed on me. Fortunately, getting a business major proved to be simple enough task, which left me free to be productive toward society. I ended up wasting my days like everyone else, though, watching television or whatever I did.

One of my proudest days came when I had already mastered the charm, about the end of college. At this age, I cruised in mild wintertime as well. I needed to wear much more, which slowed me down, but that about did it. The countryside looked less vibrant simply because of the white sheets, yet the eastern mountains attracted me, and I thus retreated there occasionally to bask in the ice and coast. One day, I looked down upon a trekker in a remote area blundering about. He may have been in trouble.

At first, I tried to evade him and any suspicion. Before I could forget him, though, he triggered an avalanche.

I figured I could put myself to the test here and now. I flew down and tried my best to tread lightly with the help of my imaginary wings. Calling out didn’t help that much. I estimated where he may have been buried and began to dig. I hadn’t found him, but off to my left, downhill, I saw a walking stick barely poke through the surface. I trotted over and dug him out, using hovering as leverage.

The hiker was in a right state. Like the walking stick poked out of the snow bank, a bone poked out of his left arm. He had passed out and trailed red on the white; he looked ruddy and pale, too.

I tried to suppress any panic. Where could I take him? To a hospital or ranger station around here? I resolved that he should leave immediately, so I tied my overcoat around his torso and dragged him along in the air. My whole body felt exhausted soon enough, a natural result of weighted drifting, and I kept myself off any thoughts of letting him fall to Earth in a shameful tragedy. My flesh could not let his perish! I don’t remember much, but I remember following a gorge downhill, as down the stream which divided the peaks, there would have to be cities. A half-hour later, a plowed road crossed the stream which flowed from the gorge. Within sight, I spotted a depot, landed behind the lot, and carried him over with my remaining strength. Luckily, the manager could call for an ambulance. In another half-hour, the medics pulled in and took him, assuring me that he would be in recovery for a long time and might have a concussion but will do fine. How fortunate he was that…I saw him on the side of the road?

“Yeah, I don’t know how that happened, either.”

Not to worry, though. You’re a real hero for the rescue. Do you want a ride back to the town?

“Sure.”

Off I went to satisfy them. Toward the end, the man began to stir, mumbling about his bandages. Right after they arrived at the clinic, I stepped outside for an alleged cigarette break before I could tell them who I am. The cigarette break instead took me wandering to the surrounding forest, then to the sky.

I knew the magic wasn’t for naught! I changed someone’s life for the better. He learned a lesson, but probably wound up fine. On the most frightening nights, I suspect he may have been evil incarnate or another demon. Since I taught him the conditioned goodness that illuminates life, those traits might have diminished. Besides, he may have been a saint. Who knows? The whole ordeal distressed me, however, because the best I could do was to slink around in the hills and hope the rescued wouldn’t bother to note who rescued them. At the climax, I resolved to withdraw from the mess.

…

In daydreams around this age, I likened myself to a kind of Clark Kent, without many of the dull, flat, admirable personality traits. He flew and seemed normal enough. But he also hailed from a distant planet, charmed women, fought villains, and possessed super strength. I’m not sure where my talents came from, but they distracted me from courtship. The crooks in real life are always ambiguous and smiling. As for super strength-well, I could only fly, but developed a superpower far better than muscle girth.

(Did Superman ever feel alienated? What would he say in person? He could have been my guide.)

I called it flight-reasoning. It took so much practice to perfect the single-serving meditation, but I found it effective in relieving the tension I stored from the monotony of my life. Whenever I lifted off to escape the crushing terror of office work, I began to fantasize about philosophy, the corners of the world, possibilities and other realities. Fantasy didn’t come naturally for me, anyway, but I picked up the habit because of the solitude and free time of aerial acrobatics. Maybe that’s how the weirder earthly people deal with displacement. They all became like furniture the more I engrossed myself. Very few, I think, have risen above insane human reasoning and embraced reality through deviance.

Flight-reasoning had its own engine malfunctions. Again, I only enlightened myself, not the world. So much creative energy went into flight-reasoning. I pretty much toiled on just flight-reasoning and my office job, a gray box with a withering potted plant and a mahogany desk. In the annals of history, I, Tomas, lived as a useful cog in a corporate machine. Not an important cog. I wanted so badly, you know, to help out the world-after all, who gets to fly like I have? The world didn’t really want help, however. So I kept to my directionless flight-reasoning, as breezy and energetic as a hot-air balloon. An end onto itself in disorganized heat and a scenic ride. You don’t fly in a hot-air balloon to get places. You use a passenger plane or a car-an efficient way. And I guess I sacrificed results for security.

Or maybe such thinking was my downfall. You know, every time I look back, I think about how I thought, how I lived, how I used my invisible wings. After a couple of decades, I hadn’t reconciled much with the world. Things all seemed to be rather complicated, so it was difficult to generalize about anything. Same goes for myself. There was more to me, I hoped, than the office worker with the special gift, but nothing signaled anything different. I kept to the cycle of rising, a normal commute, work, another normal commute, and lazing around, always taking the time to piddle around up above. I began to abandon it over time like I abandoned most contact with the grounded world. Not many men are islands, though, and you’re living proof that I’m not. In the blank spaces, I managed to tuck time for friends, but not any strong relationships. My relationship grew over years with flight-reasoning, which spread to my leisure hours and other periods as I daydreamed or found happiness in an internal realm. What’s that perfect idiom? I had my head in the clouds.

Of course, flight could be practical. Whenever I needed a vacation, I could take off in any direction without regard to borders or highways. It takes so long to, say, cross an ocean, especially when you aren’t nestled in a steel barrier and have to do the work yourself. A jumpsuit can usually help, but breaks help even more. Navigation can be easy to pick up with enough effort. Even still, in my first few years of tripping, I would have to make pit stops for directions. Imagine what happened when they asked where my car was!

The view can be incredible! In three dimensions, the deepest valleys and highest ridges hardly look like they do from the ground; they’re more real. You get the impression from an airplane. Instead of playing the role of wallpaper, they jut out and deform in so many ways. Don’t even ask about clouds! I took photographs when going out to the eastern mountains-in fact, pretty much everywhere I went. I’m not sure where they are right now, but that’s not important. The laws of physics and meteorology haven’t changed in my lifetime, which satisfies me, no matter how accustomed I became to the marvels. When gazing into the vast emptiness between the dirt and me, though, I’ll shift my flight-reasoning and delve into thought about how puny I am in comparison to all these mighty wonders, and what I’ve done with my magic to ensure I live on beyond my passing.

The view serves as a reminder, then, of flight-reasoning. But when the emptiness gazes back at you, everything is a reminder of your mortality. Still, though, I conquered crawling around! I just needed to know how to use it, or to set myself apart from the crawling beings who could only wish to fly as I did. Each day I immersed myself in the question, I found nothing that wouldn’t infuriate or trouble everyone else. And so that, too, led to flight-reasoning, to cut myself off from the situation and let my head linger in the clouds. What appeared as imagination transformed into escape and withdrawal from extremes in existentialism, to be content with the world without enjoying earthly things. My flight, like the universe, had to have been made for a good reason, yet I never figured out what that reason was. What the flight-reason was.

After years passed, I saw man’s creations rise and fall from the sky. Our office work wasn’t a Sisyphean task! Cities blossomed in the remote regions, technology and infrastructure improved. You humans became wiser. While we’ll all crumble someday, at least we’ve made our lives better in the process. If we go anywhere after the universe, we’ll have accomplished a mighty feat. Still, in my flight-reasoning, I would trouble myself over its meaning, and how I let go of being a fledgling to toil in a flavorless job and hide the one property that would make or break everything. When I dreamed once in a while, I wouldn’t be in that stale potted-plant greenhouse, but off somewhere up above, on a search.

Living as a cog wore me down a little. Maybe it’s the natural order of things, you know, to fade out. I saw the whole globe; I peered at all landforms from every angle and admired each one for a moment. Don’t get me wrong-I loved it! When acrobatics took too much energy, however, and I had done everything I could, I resigned from the sky and drifted down. I retired the goggles I owned at that point, and revisited them less often. The routine lost its novelty. I worked, I slept, and I reasoned just like I had before. On special days, I’d lift myself again, but now I became content with looking up and thinking about how my house would appear in today’s weather. How strange that you and everyone else I know should consider that normal when another realm blankets us, both the sky and the mind!

I’m glad I got somewhere in the end, though-I’m relieved that I took the time to build a world at all, to even attempt to understand the complex Earth from above in mind and body. I never did anything, which I regret. But with enough focus and faculties, anyone can make art. Depth is almost never achieved. Wherever I go from here, I’ll take it with me. So I hope the gaffe of my life isn’t the end of everything I can do with either world. I wonder if I’ll let go of this malaise, if I’ll be a removed teenager in spirit stuck into an old body forever. The escape flight gave me propelled me to some realm that I’m afraid crumbles the longer I stare at it, but one that entertained while it lasted, no matter how it shifts every time I return. No matter if I never determined anything at all.

…

“That’s my story, then. Sorry I got off on a bit of a tangent there, Louie.”

“No problem at all! It’s a pretty good story anyway, not really like anything I’ve ever heard.” From you.

“Yeah, it’s really more human than you’d think. I- I don’t suspect I’ve done anything special, given what sleep gave me that one night. My aviation is flawed by my standards. Then again, I’m the sole expert, and you wouldn’t spot the errors.”

“Well, you’ve got to have impressive skills to do anything you’ve just said in the air. But I saw you float off the floor, so I guess I’ll believe anything.”

“Do you want to see soon?”

“Yeah, sure. Hell, if it’s not too late to tell me, it’s not too late to pull off more amazing feats.”

“You know, when adrift in flight-reasoning, I’d imagine that I’d break the secret to you or a random stranger. Show off my acrobatics and maneuvers, and all the glory. I’m no longer spry, but within me you could probably glimpse my former talents.”

“How about now?”

“It’s too cold right now for high-atmosphere flying, and the air’s too thick with water vapor. Bad for my bones. I’ve got to show you sometime soon, when it’s warmer.”

“Next summer, right?”

“We’ll always have next summer, don’t you know?”

…

I heard the news four months later, after we met thrice more, less and less often each time, never speaking about flight but implying it in every other line of conversation. Less able to meet than in other seasons. He contracted some species of malaise drifting around, a faceless doctor said. A low-lying virus which plagued the cold, damp weather. Due to pneumonia, the doctor said, Tomas died.

I let the phone hang from my hand, allowing the doctor to speak about his worsening condition over the past fortnight and his contacts. He placed me right behind his family when he entered the hospital, the doctor said. I could see the body forthwith, before the morticians came and sliced up his lungs for research on respiratory infection. Per his request, of course. I told him I had no interest in going to the clinic right now, but thank you very much for the news.

I hung up, considered the situation briefly, and walked over to the sofa. After staring at the ceiling for several minutes, I turned on the television. I kept my sight trained not on the cathode-ray cage, but to the dreary but clearing sky off in the distance, past the promenade of trees and panes which blocked my access to his world.

…

The family offered me an invitation to a funeral for the following Friday. I forget when exactly, only that it was a Friday. “You seemed to be one of his better friends, and we heard him mention you a couple of times over the years.” I accepted.

“Were you a close friend? We didn’t know he had any; he was such a sweet child and spent all his time fluttering around.”

“You could say that, yes. So Friday?”

On a windless day, almost as wet as the previous winter, I met with his mother, his father, and several other acquaintances at a chapel on the edge of town, each dressed in fine middle-class garb. I wore whatever dark outfit I kept in the closet, something to provide an antithesis to the sun. I never really minded the fashion, though. Who needed to provide a front for deep mindsets?

I admired the church’s architecture, with puritan-black beams high above like the skeleton of a massive whale. And we all swam in its great belly. The panels of glass enclosed in puritan white circling the congregations contained vibrant effigies of religious scenes. The interplay of afternoon light transfixed me. The mingling greens of crucifixion grass and blues of God-stricken sky inched up the pews to my right over the hour that Tomas’s father gave the eulogy, mastering his fear of public speaking and nervousness of speaking to engaged folk. He needn’t fear me.  I didn’t linger in the coffin-room, but detached myself somewhere far above the planet or far below in subterranean lakes. With enough sense to nod when spoken to.

When we proceeded past the decaying organic matter in the box, more magical than anything I’ve witnessed in all my life, each member paid his or her respects and condolences in moist tears, napkins courtesy of the local paper mill. One self-same face cried and set her head on a stranger’s shoulder, but I busied myself in meaningful musings on the passed soul, winding my way to the corpse over infinity. Maybe that’s what he meant by flight-reasoning.

I arrived and stared Tomas straight in the eyelids. It took this long for me to realize that I hadn’t seen a dead body until now, nor been to a funeral-and I’m now virtually pressed against a diseased pal, some stuffed doll which everyone worshipped in sadness. Shock-like a warm ballad which sours tone in an instant, or the palpitations of being thrown into deep water. In one metaphor, struggling to wrap yourself around the gloomy transition; in another, full of adrenaline and thrashing around, scrambling to find any surface. Essentially equivalent. A crack in the snow that triggers an avalanche that rushes over your mind and begins to lose coherence.

They stitched up the body well; he looked at peace, unlike himself, and without surgical tools protruding from his abdomen. I wonder where they tucked the wings-just a little. I may have murmured my suspicions-just a little.

“There, there, now.”

We then piled into our rides and poured exhaust on the country drift. They repressed any feeling in order to stay within the lane. I fretted over having to pay for petrol from the sanctuary to the field.

After setting vehicles on “park” and meandering toward the fresh hole, a minister from the church, newly ordained, arrived and began to speak on the sanctity of life in sentimental terms. For some bizarre reason, this justified somber expression yet argued against it. And it would be the same if the corpse were that of a malevolent dictator or a saint. When it comes to the specifics, it doesn’t matter that Tomas lay deep; how people thought of him could be locked away. Or maybe the fact that a closely held member of the cosmic party went missing. Instead, I delved into thought on his character and how I could apply flight-reasoning in my own life. That’s when the second shock came-I realized that he could live with the transient, physical humans if his good advice persisted in memory of how he really lived and wanted to live. Not just a caricature or a hopeful portrayal.

A while later, I snapped out of the transfixion and found the casket at the bottom of the pit. Dirt piled on the coffin, mussing up the flowers and the intricate, overdone designs and laminate. Within that chest lay the last evidence of flight, and the reluctance which caused his downfall, killing him vicariously through illness of the chest. The nesting seemed almost appropriate in all senses of irony.

Volumes of dirt drowned the vessel. When diggers completed the suffocation, the priest exchanged a few final phrases before allowing the rest to depart and abandon the cosmonaut. I contemplated briefly any escape for the scents which fogged my mental cogs.

“Not too bad for your first time.”

He considered his next words for a moment.

“Well, from ashes to ashes, I suppose. We emerge on the surface of the Earth, remain there for our lives, and return soon enough. Looking for peace in Christ, Louis, no matter how normal a funeral this may be.”

I had no idea if he was right or not. I reflected his gaze, not his certainty. It all seemed a ruse to me, a sphere which feels massive until you divide it and stare at a hollow shell. Not Christ, but a web of assumptions to assign qualities that aren’t there. To fill a deep-seated longing. To no longer fragment thoughts.

“That’s it, then. Good night to this bloke.”

He turned around, the pallbearers and other guests ahead already, chatting about the lovely spring breeze which just began to blow, and the positive change in the weather. I stood straight and escaped somehow into consideration-how anyone else could hear the fragile story which now only existed in one living mind. Maybe some cosmic tape recorder would prevent it from floating away. Maybe the story it tells is a downer, but I beg to differ. Maybe on a particularly quiet evening, I’ll wonder, instead of missing him for qualities which weren’t there, how much the two of us missed.

As I fretted, the birds chirped on in the cemetery groves, not concerning themselves with any weighty subjects, each beaked head worth far less than even mine. Far less than the man who fell into Earth.

I remember your youthful drifting days,
Way back when you were a savant of the strange.
The different bulb still shines, your thoughts still stray.
You saw the rainy dog transform on the green;
You ventured into a cool autumn gale;
You fought creeping growth and yearned for the divine.

To fill a void, they taught you deaf clichés.
You built a withdrawn sandbox as dark exchange-
And when they fought their wars, you turned away.
Within lost groves, you set our absent routine,
And let your wants tell a divided tale.
Without such hate or love, you needed some sign.

You campaigned for years, you breathed in the gaze.
When you saw the great split, you felt the truth change.
You sung your happy rhapsodies each day;
You heard them ramble, wished for what once had been.
And when you found the secret, you set sail.
So drift on, you warm-hearted cynic, and shine!