I've done it before, and it's usually a bad idea.
The following is a dream that I had last night, and as usual, I decided that not writing it down would be wasteful of good creativity, even if I'm not completely sure that it could really be considered -my- creativity. Who owns dreams? Who wants to? Anyway, on to the body of the story:
[Note, however, that many parts of it are already lost in the haze of the short time that it takes to actually wake up.]
As far as I know, this is not one of my re-occurring dreams.
Dream:
I was having an excellent day, as I usually do, doing something or other, probably something exceedingly strange that I can't remember.
It was getting on in the afternoon of a calm and clear warm sunny day, and instead of walking down the highway on my own, I had hitched a ride with this female who was driving a sky blue pickup truck, so vividly colored as to resemble to blue that the sky gives off on a good day. I probably had only wanted to hitchhike because I liked the truck, the blue, and it's driver, because though I went to sleep in the back of the truck almost right away, we arrived in a small town very shortly thereafter [at least it seemed a short time, you can never tell, when you're asleep.], so I probably might as well have just walked it as I have done so many times.
Parking on the relatively calm main street of the city, she got out, came around, and woke me to tell me that she had some errands to run in this town that would keep her for some time before she was going to continue on. I rather sleepily agreed, said that I'd probably be continuing on with her, and promptly rolled over and fell back asleep.
Waking up sometime thereafter, I decided that it was time for me to go. I still was rather tired, as usual, but then, it was probably my own fault, as usual.
I got up and dragged myself across the main street of the town and onwards for a short way I reached the hillside. The town was situated relatively high up on the side of a steep incline that dipped down into the valley. It couldn't have rightly been called a cliff, as it would have had to have first been cleared of it's profuse collection of trees, and yanked just ten degrees more vertical. But then, yes, it would have been a cliff.
It provided an excellent view of the lush valley, and the sun was just in the right place to light up the trees on the hill below into a panorama of the yellowed-green that the rays makes when they slide powerfully through healthy plant life and a smattering of groups of actually yellow leaves, almost as if autumn had just begun to feed on some of the tree's colors and had not taken them further than the "still very vibrant, just not green" stage.
I looked down on the beautiful view and the calm day, absorbing it's splendor for a moment, and then decided it was time to jump. Time to fly.
Now for those of you who are not as well versed in the principles of flight as you should be, it's very easy to -fly-. The landing, takeoff and trying to do turns that don't take a half-hour are the hard parts. The principle behind flying is simple: Just realize that you are indeed very closely related, whether structurally or because your father was one, to a certain type of bird. One must always, however, keep in mind that even though you are like the bird now, the bird has had a lifetime more experience than you. Pick whichever kind you seem closest to. I've no doubt that bats would work as well, and it's even possible that Boeing 747's are a viable choice, though I'd say stick to things that are living.
On this particular day I felt certain of easy success, being tired and groggy and succeptible to my own suggestion, decided on some small bird of prey or another, and leapt.
It was fine for a few moments, the usual feeling of weightlessness, bursting out into the air, the joy of flight. I then proceeded to weightlessly and joyfully arc in a plummeting drop to the ground.
Staggering to my feet in disbelief and carrying a full frontal collection of the mud, leaves and twigs of the hillside with me, I shook my head clear of it's mud, if not it's fog, remembered again that I was a some small hawk or another, and tossed myself off of a space, this time making sure to have a grassy runway clear of trees below me.
Of course, this time it worked. I soared out and away from the soil, into the bright sky that had waited for me. ...for two seconds, before dropping like a very surprised small hawk to the earth that had waited for me below.
With an effort I pushed myself and my array of the flora of the bank, now almost complete with grass added in, onto all fours.
I then knew it was time to get serious. Who was I fooling anyway? Me being like a small hawk indeed. Hah.
Condor was much more like it.
It was time to pull out all the stops. As I stood at the top of the steep incline above another clear space available for my takeoff, I felt confident in my Condorhood, and almost made some Condor-like sounds of amusement at my pitiable attempts to take off like the smaller birds. After all, Condors, with their much larger wingspan and weight, require more time, effort, space, etcetera, to take off.
From a running start, I threw myself full force into the empty space that is the sky, wings outstretched, as aerodynamically aligned as possible. And I glided like the condor that I was. The trees at the bottom of the slope were passing under me, almost, when I felt a slight tug that made my heart lurch in concern. It could be said to have felt like the tug of gravity finally kicking in.
On my way down, curled as tightly as possible into a ball of falling Condorhood, I considered for an instant the fallacy of being anywhere near objects that are taller than you when trying to fly. After that my mind was taken up by more pressing, woody, branchy matters.
I lay sprawled at the bottom edge of the grove of trees that I had just been through like an elephant through the teeth of a comb and deliberated upon which species of the trees on the hill I should take a chainsaw to first.
After a long debate, with the main two parties being split into those who were in favor of getting rid of the ones with branches and their opposition, the conservationists, who just wanted to eliminate any trees more than waist high, in the end of which I had resolved that I'd just take the easier route of getting rid of the mountain, I began to move again.
Deciding that a check for limbs and body-parts was in order, though fairly certain that what I was experiencing wasn't any "Phantom limb" phenomenon, I opened my eyes to the sky and slowly swiveled them to look up the hill, where the rest of my body waited. Moving a few fingers on each hand and noticing with satisfaction that the movement affirmed their presence, I then proceeded exhaustively onwards to the toes.
After having made sure that the strange ball of mud with a number of sticks poking out of it apparently housed my left foot, and that the movement of a few of the sticks when I moved my toes did not indicate that my foot now looked like a ball of mud with long sticks poking out of it, or at least wouldn't after a good cleaning, I moved on to my right foot, where I hesitated.
Wondering what the function of this strange white piece of anatomy was and why no-one ever mentioned it in the anthropology books, I continued to examine it without moving. It protruded from my ankle at a strange angle, thin and long, half-white and the rest covered in mud.
It wrapped around my ankle several times, and then one end extended off and onto the ground, leading into the forest from which I had come. It greatly resembled a clothesline, one of the thin but strong kind that has fibers on the outside and a plastic core and holds up the poles of the clothesline more than the poles of the clothesline hold it up. Mainly this was due to the fact that it -was- a clothesline.
After considering it for a bit, I managed to position myself so that I could actually reach the line. I gave the line a sharp tug, as sharp as one can get with only the minimal amount of motion, just to see what would happen. The result was noise still rather familiar to me; the sound of a heavy object crashing through tree branches, subsequent hitting the tree roots, and sliding down the slick and muddy slope at the bottom of those trees.
The fact that "down the slope" meant "in my direction" not escaping me, I considered methods of escape from the path of the unknown object. Having quickly thrown out the possibility of moving, I had narrowed it down to "having a tree suddenly sprout and grow up in the path of the object" and "having someone suddenly appear to stop the object" when the thing in question came into view, sliding slowly to a halt halfway between me and the edge of the trees not far away.
The object was a bright orangey-yellow, and as far as I can tell, it was a car-jack. A car jack is, of course, a heavy metal hydraulic device which you slide on it's small wheels into position underneath the car, use a metal bar inserted into the jack to crank the extension of the jack upwards until the car rests partially upon it, at which point the wheel nearest it can be removed and replaced. It was also tied to the other end of my clothesline, with a lot of slack in-between.
Having considered this turn of events for some time, I had finally begun the laborious process of untying the clothesline from my foot while trying not to move too much when I heard more crashing noises coming from in the trees. The first thing that I saw were two white objects, white boots, which co-incidentally happened to be worn on the feet of a tall woman who had just reached the edge of the trees above me. It was, no less, the woman from the truck that I had hitchhiked in. After the two of us looked at each-other for a few moments, the dream ended.
:End Dream
The morals of the dream, as far as I can piece them together now, are these: When you're trying to fly, always make sure you're not tied to anything first.
:And:
Females are trouble.