To Dream of the Skies

Have you ever had a crazy dream? I don’t mean a nightmare. I mean something bizarre, something that makes you wonder what’s really going on in your own subconscious.

I was sitting at my kitchen table enjoying a nice mug of hot tea and an English muffin. Across the table from me, bleary-eyed in the early morning light, my wife sat eating a bowl of Cheerios and watching a sitcom on her mobile. There was a flutter of wings on our balcony, and we both turned to watch a pigeon land on the railing and strut back and forth.

Now, this pigeon was a frequent visitor – I had long since named him Leroy – and he was prone to bring his little girlfriends to the balcony from time to time. Whichever one he enjoyed the most (presumably) would end up building a nest in the mosquito netting bunched up under one corner of the awning. Every spring, a bunch of little Leroy Jr.’s chirped and twittered incessantly up there. Usually, when Leroy brought his lady love to sit on our balcony railing, they would stay there for an hour or so, or until something scared them off.

On this particular morning, Leroy and his girlfriend decided not to linger. Maybe they had an argument or something, because after about ten minutes she flew off. Leroy sat there for a couple seconds looking lost and forlorn, and then flew away after her.

As we watched the two birds disappear over the rooftops, my wife turned to me and said, “I wonder how big the world seems from up there.”

To which I replied, “Limitless, I’m sure.”

She looked at me with big Bambi-esque brown eyes and said, “We should find out.”

I should have known right then she was plotting something, dammit.

My wife and I were sitting in a lobby waiting to take flying lessons. She was humming cheerfully and shooting me amused glances; I was reading a magazine and trying to look like this was all my idea.

A receptionist called our names, and led us to a back room where we sat looking at star charts. The instructor told us we needed to demonstrate proficiency in celestial navigation before we could take a plane up into the air. Apparently, as the instructor explained it, if we lost navigation and communications while above the cloud layer, we should be able to use the stars to guide us.

He asked us to pick out three stars on the chart and tell us their names. My wife picked out Sirius, Vulcan, and Alpha Centauri; I picked out Vulcanschild, Paramus, and Andromeda.

No one called my bluff, but I don’t think I fooled anybody. The instructor told me I couldn’t go solo, I had to share a plane with my wife. She smiled at me ever-so-sweetly, but her eyes were alive with merry devilment and I felt a chill run through my spine.

But I couldn’t very well back out now. Dammit.

Up in the air, we stayed in the middle of the cloud layer. We were bumping around quite a bit, the entire craft rocking and bouncing and shaking. My wife was at the controls, with the instructor in the copilot seat. I was sitting behind them, feverishly reciting the Serenity Prayer and hoping my present elevation made these prayers more audible to the Almighty.

Suddenly we burst out above the cloud layer and were soaring into a glorious sunset. My wife and I watched, holding hands, until the sun dipped below the clouds. The instructor turned the plane around and we flew into the gathering darkness.

Now the stars were out, and we were standing before an open cargo bay door. The chill wind whipped at my hair, and my wife turned to me with that oh-so-sweet smile I had been dreading all day. She leaned towards me and whispered in my ear…

“Remember when you took me skiing for the first time?” she said. “You took me up to the top of the ski slope, and you looked at me and said ‘I always wanted to push you off a mountain,’ and then you gave me a good hard shove. I screamed all the way to the bottom.”

She moved a step closer and placed her hand in the small of my back. I broke out in a cold sweat as I suddenly realized I was wearing a parachute.

“Well,” she whispered, “It’s payback time.” And she gave me a short, sharp shove.

I screamed all the way to the ground.

When I woke up the morning after having that dream, my wife asked me why I kept looking at her like she’d insulted my mother, but she left for work before I could articulate an answer.

As I sat back with my cup of tea, I glanced over at my balcony. Leroy was sitting on the railing as his girlfriend strutted beside him. Suddenly she took off into the sky, buffeting Leroy with her wings as she went. Leroy turned, looked through the window, staring directly into my eyes.

After a moment, I raised my mug of tea in salute.

“I feel you, brother,” said I, and drained the mug.