Flight

There's a figure in the darkness. She's high up. No telling how she got there, standing a hundred floors high on building that shines like one solid mirror. The color of the sky changes in the panes of glass and in her black, black eyes. They reflect everything and evince nothing, the dark guileless eyes of a Goddess.

She watches the city breathe around her. Under the maddening sky, they don't seem to notice the brisk fragility of their lives, the tenouousness with which they grasp at things. They can only see that which is directly before them: the dry cleaning, the day at work, the dinner tonight, the fight with their mother, the holiday shopping annoyances. They march forward relentlessly, a never ending parade of sameness, mirrors against mirrors. She watches them, cocks her head curiously at them. They don't see her, they never do. How could they? She is in the sky and they never look up.

She watches the horizon until her chest fills up with its beauty. It hurts to breathe. There's no more time, if there ever was time in the first place.She closes her eyes and still sees the world behind her eyelids. There is no way to shut it out; it's a part of her now. She's part of it. She's part of everything.

It's easy to fall. She just walks out, stretches her arms forward out and pulls it around her like a blanket. The sky, the wind, the clouds, they pluck impishly at her skin as she goes past. She is not afraid. She smiles.She opens her eyes. It's time. She stretches her arms out and embraces it. Sure enough, the wind fills her up like a parachute. Just before she hits the ground, she sweeps up in a delicate arc. Her body spins around like a bullet, effortlessly peircing the air around her. She rockets into the sky even faster than she fell. As she reaches the clouds, she stretches them out again. She floats for a moment, over them all, and her laughter rings out like snowflakes. She swoops and dives again, on wings they can't see and won't see, wings they will never know she had.

My Subconscious is Extremely Impractical

I've never been entirely sure if there is a huge difference between writers and schizophrenics. I think most writers live with an internal dialogue that they may or may not be able to identify as themselves. I know I have a voice in there, which I'm pretty sure is my own. But every now and then it comes up with something so bizarre or taunting that I really begin to wonder.

There's been a narrator in there for as long as I can remember, throwing out helpful descriptions of the landacape "the clouds billowed dangerously in the sky like a group of bullying children in the schoolyard" or just narrating my own actions in an annyoingly pretentious way, "She had known she didn't love him; but she seen her worth only in terms of what he could give her." It can be a little smug at times, but I don't want it to go away. Beecause it's also the voice I hear when I feel depressed or confused. It's almost always cheering me on, a little bit of hope that reaches out to me, and reminds me of the things that I really believe in.

But today, the voice told me something unusual. I was walking back up the stairs to my office, and I looked out at the sky overhead. It's something I frequently do when I'm trying to feel better. This kind of "looking up" reminds me that there's more out there, and that I just need to have the right kind of thinking to see it. But today as I looked outside, the voice quite clearly told me, "You could walk out the door and never come back." I would have almost called it a taunt, if it had not come in such a gentle, reassuring way. It wasn't making fun of me. It was just a reminder, that I am free.

I was surprised however, that my subconcious, so acutely aware of my current unhappiness, was reminding me of my freeedom to choose. Of course, it is the practical, rational choice, but it is a still a choice that I consciously make. I come here, out of my own free will, every day. I like tell myself I need to be here, that I need the money, and this almost completely true. But I am always choosing this for myself, whether conscious or unconscious, and that choice always available to me is the option to walk out the door and never come back.

*Big deep breath*


My inner voice is much, much braver than me.