Drifting, falling...floating weightless, Coming, coming home

A short tale of a person falling...and loving every minute of it. A lesson I hope to learn myself.

For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world...

Planet earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do..."
-Space Oddity, David Bowie


To transcend the heavens and touch the face of God, but now the cold, caked crust of the underworld is rushing up to greet me. The feathers in the sky nod their heads and bid me goodbye, fleeting around me in a maddened spiral. There is pounding on the glass, the elementals demanding entrance within the cockpit. Craning my head to them, all I can do is stare in wonder. The azure world is nothing but blue, devoid of line and border. Yet it spins wildly. I can feel my heart and lungs being crushed by forces unseen and unheard, only felt. It is as if the invisible hands of wraiths are crushing me, slowly, mercifully.

But still I see, continuing to watch.

Down below the brown, dusty world whirls like a top, while I am sitting here, stationary. I think. Here I sit in this theater seat, in my pressurized suit and coat. The play before me is filled with demented beauty, the seas of green grass, blackened roads, and the distant sheen of metallic towers spiraling insanely all around me. It's so beautiful. I remain transfixed, unable to move. The harness is choking.

Finally the elementals dig their claws into the canopy, ripping it clear off with a spine-sundering screech. The wind flits by me like a thousand knives, cutting into my face and whipping my hair into a rabid frenzy. It's so cool, so cold. The shrieking gale speaks to me, whispering of the exquisite view coming to me. I mouth my consent, nodding to every breeze that zips by. It's not like the air below, that sullied, noxious air. This land, this high and untouched by human hands, is pure; it's unlike anything I've ever felt.

There's an incessant, annoying beeping. It comes from the consoles weighing down on my lap and pushing against my chest. The Christmas lights dotting its breadth won't shut up. They whine and shrill without end. I give them a glance, and then promptly return my gaze to the magnificent rolling world surrounding me.

My bird is breaking, it then dawns on me. The shaking that started as I was soaring higher reaches a crescendo like no other that can be heard. I can feel, though I may not see, the metal plated feathers falling away, falling daintily down to the ground below. The bird is shedding its wings, it no longer needs them.

The cerulean sky and muddied earth never cease to spin, merging into one glorious entity. It bears no name, no identity. Yet it always was.

My plane is falling. The wind is racing past my face, the ground rushing up to crush me faster and faster. But it all looks so beautiful, I'm awed. I can do nothing else but be so. The jet is spiraling down to my fall, my final end. Yet the ride down is so beautiful...

I close my eyes and smile. The way down is short. But the wind smells so fresh.

Author's Note

I usually proofread my works, however as always I'm sure there are typos and syntax errors. I appreciate any and all notices of that, and will work to correct those. If I haven't do know that I did acknowledge your notice and try implementing it, but found that it detracted from the effect I wanted and so omitted it.