Fly

I'm obsessed with air travel. I love it. I love the whole process: buying a ticket, going through security, sitting at the gate, layovers in a strange city, a rough flight, a smooth flight, flight attendants and pilots, in-flight meals, takeoff and landing, taxiing at night, turbulence, finding my bags on the carousel, and jumping into someone's car on the pickup level.

I've never had dreams of flying. At least not in the cool, look-mom-no-plane type of flying. I was once in a hot air balloon in a dream, and some flying human landed on it and cut it open, causing me to crash.

In dreams, I'm usually trapped, struggling, fighting, climbing, running, trying to break free and escape, or trying to keep from falling.

My subconscious mind is poisoned by realism.

I dream of flying. Of being an actual bird, without the scumminess of human existence to weigh me down. Flying as a human would be as miserable as anything else as a human. "Yep yep, I'm flyin'. I should go pay some bills, take those books back, I hope I don't hit something or get shot at, damn, this isn't even worth it".

When I was little, the concept of God was fantastic. God lived in this big old building with colored windows and a piano that I liked to bang on when nobody was looking.

Mom told me God was always watching and listening, and that he could answer prayers.

Damn. I think I sucked up to God for days on end. I told him I would never tell anybody to "shut up" again...I said I wouldn't hit my brother anymore -- ever. I haggled and pleaded, and for what I deemed a sufficient amount of time, I kept my end of the bargain. But God didn't keep his. I tell you what -- that old guy never did teach me to fly. Fuck it.

My mother and oldest brother were lucid dreamers to a certain point: they could fly whenever they wished. They would describe being able to fall asleep, walk over to their window, open it, then fly like invisible birds.

My brother tried to teach me that the trick was to become aware that I was dreaming. He tried to plant the suggestion that if I can see my hands, I will become aware. I sincerely tried; but it never worked for me.

When I was little, my mother's then-boyfriend would tell me that if I ran around in the yard fast enough, flapping my arms up and down, I'd be able to fly like a bird. Then, having no reason to think that he would lie to me and really wanting to be able to fly, I'd do it for hours and he and my mother would just laugh at me from the porch.

The darker, pessimistic side of me marks this as the point in my life when futility was first learned and sincere hope in anything was forever extinguished.

The other side of me says that I'll fly someday. We'll see who's laughing then, fucker.