It is late twilight.

The fiery golden sunset sky lives again on the mirror surface of the small, still lake.

Around the shoreline tall trees stand in jet black relief.

I am on a long, narrow dock that stretches out of the building on my left and parallels the shore. Grainy, grey with age, the planks march away toward the end, which is over the water.

From my hands what appears a shapeless, featureless cloth hangs limply.

I know different. I cannot prove, nor have I demonstrated that this … is a wing.

Looking at it one would be stupid to even hint that that’s what it is. That I know lives in a domain of belief, hope, suspicion, and it is obviously stupid to believe, hope OR suspect that this is a wing.

Yet just as certain as doubtful am I that it is, and I know that to reveal its true nature I must run to the end of the dock, toss it into the air, and throw myself upon it full length as it spreads.

This is obviously absurd!

… and yet …

I may fly!

So, running at full speed out the dock, still in doubt, just as I reach the end I toss the cloth into the air ahead of me … and

… leap … fully extended, irrevocably committed, with all my doubts and fears along … onto the middle of the fluttering, falling sheet.

Instantly momentum fails, velocity drops, I fall into the folds. As my weight presses into it, it becomes a surface, arching upward and outward away from the center on both sides. It is stretched taught, drum-like, and silently riding the soft, invisibly rushing air.

It is clear. It is bright … and I … am …. flying.

A dream from long ago