Memories and Dreams of Flying, edited to Rev B
Memories and Dreams of Flying, Rev B
Witness to Wonder.
Scene 1:
The skier had other roles: engineer, student, clarinetist, lover, dreamer, infant to name but a few, but that night he was a skier, he was alone and a witness to wonder.
His seat hung from a steel cable in the dark, part way up a mountain valley in northern Vermont. The modestly lit ski trail, well away from the chair lift, barely intruded on the illusion of wilderness. Only a soft “scritch” and thump broke the silence when the cable pulled the seat up and over a tower pulley, but it drew his attention skyward. The January night air was clear as crystal between his eyes and a black sky pointed by uncountable stars. No matter how many times he saw that view he lost himself in it. Far above, a tight set of lights moved against all the others. Steady, barely separable, red & green wingtip lights and a tail strobe marked the object as an aircraft, otherwise invisible. Swiftly but silently it crawled across the field of stars. He had seen them before but he could never look away. His reward was a patterned tongue in shades of blue, which licked out behind the craft as he watched. Its crawl accelerated with an air of urgency. Somebody very high up was in a very big hurry. For all the fuel that they were spending flying at full afterburner, not a sound broke the silence on the mountain. If the skier hadn’t looked up he’d have never known they were there, even though somehow he had always known.
Scene 2:
The student was also a clarinetist, a lover and a dreamer, but that night he had paid to be a witness to wonder and he wanted his money’s worth.
He took a seat near the projection screen, slouched down, and lay back as flat as he could get. Dramatic orchestral music filled the theater, priming him for what would be an emotional flashback, as the star field on the screen filled from the bottom with the outer hull of a huge spacecraft: the Imperial Battle Cruiser. The scene filled him with awe not only for that presentation, but for something else it reminded him of, when he had been somewhere else, with someone else; when he had been someone else.
Scene 3:
The clarinetist lay on his back in the grass, on a warm summer night, watching a sky full of stars. The saxophonist lay next to him, holding his hand. They had each held other roles: he was a dreamer, a swimmer and more; she was a basketball player and more. They would each hold other roles but for that night they held each other as soon-to-be lovers and as witnesses to wonder.
They lay in the shadowed slope of a small hillock, away from the bright, fail-safe lighting lining both sides of a wide, flat strip of perfect pavement that began a short distance from where they lay and ran straight and true for nearly three miles to the northeast. They lay talking quietly as lights appeared low in the sky to the southwest. The lights grew and separated into the familiar red & green wingtip lights. Suddenly a brilliant white light bloomed into existence and overpowered all the others. It grew rapidly, brought a deafening roar, and passed closely overhead, filling their entire sky with aluminum overcast. Just for a moment, a commercial jetliner hung over them improbably huge and then was gone. Their hearts raced and they celebrated their excitement with a kiss and more.
Scene 4:
The dreamer was a student, a clarinetist, a child and other things. He had been an infant and something else. Someday he would hold different roles as he had before, but on many nights he was above all a dreamer of flight, of fights and something darker.
“Wires!” he exclaimed, to no one close enough to hear him. His heart accelerated, and he snapped his eyes from escape route to escape route. “It’s always the damned wires.” He worked his flight muscles hard, and managed to gain enough altitude to clear the power-lines. The effort left him out of breath. He could get quite high, enough to see clearly over his entire neighborhood, but always on climb-out or landing, he had trouble seeing and avoiding the power-lines, especially in the dark. Except for that problem he enjoyed the flying dreams. He struggled to extend his flights, to remember them in detail. Even though the climbing was hard work, he longed to someday get high enough to be completely surrounded by the stars of the night sky.
The fight dreams were a different story: he would inevitably end up fighting someone fast and dangerous, while he was mired in some kind of viscous ether. He could never move fast enough to defend himself.
The worst of all were the fever dreams. For some reason he experienced more of these dreams while ill, wherein he was trapped or impaired by a sense of suffocating thickness. These dreams were like the viscous ether fight dreams but without an opponent. His very existence seemed to be threatened by difficulty moving and breathing, not explicitly but implicitly, as if his entire being were trapped. The dreams always ended the same way: he would recognize the dream as something that he remembered vaguely from before, followed by a return to full consciousness.
Scene 5:
The infant drifted in and out of something like a dream. Sometimes there were others in the room, sometimes he was alone there. Sometimes he was alone and elsewhere. In that elsewhere, he was a witness to wonder.
Silence surrounded him except for a heartbeat. Was it his own? He wasn't sure. He floated weightless in a blackness that surrounded him completely, except that the blackness was not complete. The blackness hosted uncountable stars and something else. Other lights, many lights, crawled across the star field, visible only as patterned tongues, pointed away from the direction they would crawl. Periodically a tongue would spin and silently bloom into a bright blossom, leaving an after-image burned in his vision. Eventually they all had either bloomed or crawled away beyond his sight. Every attempt to move met with resistance. Eventually the simple act of breathing became impossibly difficult. The heartbeat raced and then stopped. It seemed to make sense until he woke, and then it didn't.
The infant woke with a memory of having experienced something incomprehensibly wondrous, yet terrible. He cried.
Someday he would have other roles to play, perhaps some would seem familiar, but for that night he was an infant, and a witness to wonder.
Witness to Wonder.
Scene 1:
The skier had other roles: engineer, student, clarinetist, lover, dreamer, infant to name but a few, but that night he was a skier, he was alone and a witness to wonder.
His seat hung from a steel cable in the dark, part way up a mountain valley in northern Vermont. The modestly lit ski trail, well away from the chair lift, barely intruded on the illusion of wilderness. Only a soft “scritch” and thump broke the silence when the cable pulled the seat up and over a tower pulley, but it drew his attention skyward. The January night air was clear as crystal between his eyes and a black sky pointed by uncountable stars. No matter how many times he saw that view he lost himself in it. Far above, a tight set of lights moved against all the others. Steady, barely separable, red & green wingtip lights and a tail strobe marked the object as an aircraft, otherwise invisible. Swiftly but silently it crawled across the field of stars. He had seen them before but he could never look away. His reward was a patterned tongue in shades of blue, which licked out behind the craft as he watched. Its crawl accelerated with an air of urgency. Somebody very high up was in a very big hurry. For all the fuel that they were spending flying at full afterburner, not a sound broke the silence on the mountain. If the skier hadn’t looked up he’d have never known they were there, even though somehow he had always known.
Scene 2:
The student was also a clarinetist, a lover and a dreamer, but that night he had paid to be a witness to wonder and he wanted his money’s worth.
He took a seat near the projection screen, slouched down, and lay back as flat as he could get. Dramatic orchestral music filled the theater, priming him for what would be an emotional flashback, as the star field on the screen filled from the bottom with the outer hull of a huge spacecraft: the Imperial Battle Cruiser. The scene filled him with awe not only for that presentation, but for something else it reminded him of, when he had been somewhere else, with someone else; when he had been someone else.
Scene 3:
The clarinetist lay on his back in the grass, on a warm summer night, watching a sky full of stars. The saxophonist lay next to him, holding his hand. They had each held other roles: he was a dreamer, a swimmer and more; she was a basketball player and more. They would each hold other roles but for that night they held each other as soon-to-be lovers and as witnesses to wonder.
They lay in the shadowed slope of a small hillock, away from the bright, fail-safe lighting lining both sides of a wide, flat strip of perfect pavement that began a short distance from where they lay and ran straight and true for nearly three miles to the northeast. They lay talking quietly as lights appeared low in the sky to the southwest. The lights grew and separated into the familiar red & green wingtip lights. Suddenly a brilliant white light bloomed into existence and overpowered all the others. It grew rapidly, brought a deafening roar, and passed closely overhead, filling their entire sky with aluminum overcast. Just for a moment, a commercial jetliner hung over them improbably huge and then was gone. Their hearts raced and they celebrated their excitement with a kiss and more.
Scene 4:
The dreamer was a student, a clarinetist, a child and other things. He had been an infant and something else. Someday he would hold different roles as he had before, but on many nights he was above all a dreamer of flight, of fights and something darker.
“Wires!” he exclaimed, to no one close enough to hear him. His heart accelerated, and he snapped his eyes from escape route to escape route. “It’s always the damned wires.” He worked his flight muscles hard, and managed to gain enough altitude to clear the power-lines. The effort left him out of breath. He could get quite high, enough to see clearly over his entire neighborhood, but always on climb-out or landing, he had trouble seeing and avoiding the power-lines, especially in the dark. Except for that problem he enjoyed the flying dreams. He struggled to extend his flights, to remember them in detail. Even though the climbing was hard work, he longed to someday get high enough to be completely surrounded by the stars of the night sky.
The fight dreams were a different story: he would inevitably end up fighting someone fast and dangerous, while he was mired in some kind of viscous ether. He could never move fast enough to defend himself.
The worst of all were the fever dreams. For some reason he experienced more of these dreams while ill, wherein he was trapped or impaired by a sense of suffocating thickness. These dreams were like the viscous ether fight dreams but without an opponent. His very existence seemed to be threatened by difficulty moving and breathing, not explicitly but implicitly, as if his entire being were trapped. The dreams always ended the same way: he would recognize the dream as something that he remembered vaguely from before, followed by a return to full consciousness.
Scene 5:
The infant drifted in and out of something like a dream. Sometimes there were others in the room, sometimes he was alone there. Sometimes he was alone and elsewhere. In that elsewhere, he was a witness to wonder.
Silence surrounded him except for a heartbeat. Was it his own? He wasn't sure. He floated weightless in a blackness that surrounded him completely, except that the blackness was not complete. The blackness hosted uncountable stars and something else. Other lights, many lights, crawled across the star field, visible only as patterned tongues, pointed away from the direction they would crawl. Periodically a tongue would spin and silently bloom into a bright blossom, leaving an after-image burned in his vision. Eventually they all had either bloomed or crawled away beyond his sight. Every attempt to move met with resistance. Eventually the simple act of breathing became impossibly difficult. The heartbeat raced and then stopped. It seemed to make sense until he woke, and then it didn't.
The infant woke with a memory of having experienced something incomprehensibly wondrous, yet terrible. He cried.
Someday he would have other roles to play, perhaps some would seem familiar, but for that night he was an infant, and a witness to wonder.