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.