Winston and the Universe

Leslie Richards

Winston stirred, distracted momentarily as a bird shadow flitted across his closed eyelids. On the fourth planet of a remote system far out across the galaxy a civilisation was coming to an end. The last remaining intelligent life forms were dying out; their world's resources long ago exhausted. For the last five thousand years or so their dwindling numbers had borne the few remaining artefacts of their technological legacy - the remnants of their entire species history - across the barrenness of their dying world. Now, there was nowhere left to go - no food, no water, no air left to breathe. The swollen sun of their system glared down upon them, huge and red in the blackness of their sky.

With failing strength they piled the stones into a simple cairn over the sealed containers that held the sacred treasures of their race. Now they would rest, undisturbed for millennia, while the bodies of those that had placed them there decomposed into dust and the rocks themselves crumbled under the intense heat and pressure. The huge red star would swell up in its death throes, filling the entire sky with hellish scarlet. Eventually it would explode blasting to atoms most of the barren rocks - all that remained of its ten orbiting worlds. Perhaps, the containers would survive and drift with the shattered boulders, the dust and chunks of ice, along with the faint skeins of gas molecules through the infinity of space. At some distant time in some unknowable place within the immense emptiness a ship may one day pass and register them upon its questing sensors.

Winston turned his attention away to another distant place. There in the primordial shallows of a lukewarm ocean, under a blinding white sun, chemicals held in solution were reacting to invisible rays filtering down through the poisonous atmosphere. Molecular chains were constructing themselves into unique patterns, some failing and breaking away, others bonding, forming new combinations. Life was beginning.

He panned his senses wide across his sector. Here, a thousand-year war was raging. There, three thousand years of peace was beginning among a loose federation of fifty unimaginably diverse worlds.

He yawned and stretched himself out, sensuously absorbing the heat from his own sun into his body - feeling the visible and the invisible rays that touched the Earth around him. He noted that they would still be doing so when his distant progeny lay here, several million years hence, monitoring the meanderings of the cosmos just as he had done. Just as a million generations of his kind had done before him.

His senses probed the biosphere. It was functioning relatively well even though it was under a great deal of pressure and suffering a fair degree of imbalance. Biospheres were remarkably resilient though and they would adjust and act in time to eradicate such species that threatened them. In the case of this particular species, they did not have a great deal of time left, but it was nothing much in the scheme of things. It was of little consequence. Such things are minor aberrations in the flow, insignificant nuances in the complex polyrhythms of the universal time-song.

Winston listened to the song. His ears twitched slightly as he scanned the full spectrum of its rich, resonant ambience. Selecting a harmonic insertion wave that would enable him to monitor on a wide frequency band he curled himself into a round, soft shape and he began to purr.

---

Cat

by Deena Warner

www.deenawarner.net

---

Ruben and the Luftmensch

Leslie Richards

(Luftmensch (Yiddish) - a dreamer - a person who lives in the air, someone without his feet on the ground.)

Have you ever had one of those wonderful flying dreams? You know, the ones where you just know you can fly and you actually do it - there in the dream. You concentrate really hard and then, you feel yourself rising up, unsteadily at first, but you do it. You really do it. And, as you do it, you gain a little more confidence, you feel more in control. It's like the inner mental controls are rusty. The synapses in your brain which make the connections and allow you to overcome gravity have been unused for so long that they're stiff and inflexible. But gradually they free up and you instinctively rediscover how it all functions. It's somehow the most natural feeling, yet at the same time it's joyous; ecstatically liberating. And then you're up there, soaring like a bird as if it was always possible - a human ability once lost, but now regained, re-discovered in you, by you. Yes, you can do it - you can actually fly!

"Ruben! It's time to get up!"

The dream was, as always, so real and as always, I wanted to remain there in that other reality and I was vaguely annoyed that I was being drawn away from it - back to the 'real' world. Even though it was gone now, I lay there hanging on to its memory, its substance. So real, always so real, yet now gone - until the next time.

"It's time to get up now, Ruben!"

I swing my legs out of bed. It's cold and grey this morning. It's always cold and grey. My clothes are in the heap where I left them last night. I pull my sweatshirt over my head and drag my jeans on. I fumble for my socks and have to force my feet into them. They resist me. Everything here resists me.

"Ruben, for God's sake get up, you're late already!"

In the dream, flying is like a latent power or ability that I've somehow rediscovered. I can actually feel the area in my body that I have to concentrate on. It's very much a state of mind thing. Sometimes, when I'm flying in the dream, I lose concentration and fall, but I'm able to correct this and restore my altitude. At first, I never usually flew very high, just about rooftop level mostly. But there have been dreams where I flew really high; which is odd as I have always been terrified of heights.

"Eat your breakfast, Ruben,"

In the dream, though, I feel safe in my ability and after some time spent practising I'm confident enough to soar above the clouds into the night skies and look down on the moon-washed cloudscapes, the twinkling lights of cities and such. It's so real that I can feel the wind on my face, and in my hair. Above all, I'm aware of the sheer effort it takes to maintain my ability to fly. It really drains me. In my dreams, flying is a thing I usually do in secret, but there comes a time when it's almost impossible to resist showing my skills to people - a few chosen people, friends perhaps. I don't though. Sometimes there are strangers that I like to freak out and I delight in giving them a spectacle that no one will ever believe. No, no one would ever believe them, so it's OK - that's the beauty of it. Nobody believes that a boy can fly, but I can.

"What is it with that boy? I've never known a boy sleep so much. Twelve hours' sleep he's had already and still he can't wake up!"

"Oh leave the kid alone. He's just that age. Kids that age sleep a lot, it's normal,"

"Normal, he says! If Ruben's normal then I'm the Pope!"

So what does this dream mean? If you are the kind of person who likes to analyse them then you may have your own theories about flying dreams. My dreams were almost always the same, or at least they usually followed the same pattern. In the dream, I discover that I can fly. I find out how to physically do it. There are no wings or anything like that. It's a purely mental process. Like mind over matter I guess.

"Nobody in my family slept like that, he must have got it from your side. We were all early risers - every one of us."

Have you ever played that party trick where you sit someone in a chair, then four people stand around him and press down on his head with your hands? After a minute or so of pressing down real hard you can put a single finger under his shoulders and knees and you can lift him up almost to the ceiling as if he weighed nothing at all. Now, that can be nothing else but mind over matter. The seated person has been forcing their head up against the downward pressure so hard that for a short while they become almost weightless. Try it - it works - and it proves that it's possible to overcome gravity by the power of the subconscious mind at least.

"The kid's just a dreamer, maybe he's like Einstein, maybe he's a genius."

"Did Einstein get to be a genius by sleeping all the time? No, he had
to get himself up out of bed and down to the patent office in Vienna, that's what he did!"

I read somewhere that there were these monks in Tibet that could make themselves almost weightless and actually levitate. They could cover enormous distances by running above the ground, with their feet only contacting the earth every few hundred yards or so. Long years of mental training and meditation enabled them to do this. This is the nearest thing I can think of that is anything like what happens in the dream.

"Let the boy dream. The world could use a few more dreamers. There are enough smart-arses around. There's precious little time for dreaming as it is."

Symbolically, I would say that the ability to fly, mid-way between Earth and Heaven, relates to a spiritual elevation. Perhaps it's a way of illustrating to myself that I have an ability, a gift, an insight that is suppressed, hidden and that when I allow it to emerge as it were, then it will enable me to soar above the rest. In the dream, I know how to access the inner power to do this. The question is: how do I do it when I'm awake?

"Ruben! Move yourself! You're late already!"

The answer is - I can't - it's impossible, of course. God knows I've tried hard enough. It is possible, I believe, to project yourself, well, your mind at least, to distant places; distant times even. Have you ever been in an old building, for instance, and imagined yourself back in another time, yet in the same place? It's fairly easy to do this. It's also fairly easy to take your mind to a distant place that's visible, like up there among those clouds. Imagine what it's like to be up there - flying around those rolling, white vapour mountains and valleys, soaring across those tumbling towers and mighty chasms, rolling, wind-borne, ecstatically soaring in the blinding white heaven-blue. Can you do that? I can.

"God alone knows how that boy even finds his way to the bathroom, let alone to school!"

Imagine yourself, rising up joyously into the free air, under the power of your own being, higher and higher, so that the Earth no longer influences your body at all, higher - to where it becomes only a part, a lower strata of your consciousness. Up and out to the place where only the flying people have their existence. Up and out to where the Luftmensch go.

"Look, quit worrying about him. The kid's just a bit of a loner. Some people are like that - you know? Happy in their own company."

"I should be so happy!"

At first I never flew far. Just around the few blocks where I live. It's a different world up there, looking down on the streetlights and such. You get the sense that down there isn't so important. It doesn't mean so much. Up there you can imagine those streetlights are strings of jewels strung out along the highways. You can imagine the city is a fairyland and not a garbage heap. The air up there is clean and nobody hassles you. It's like Christmas every night - all lit up for me alone to see.

"Hey, there's that weird kid Ruben. Shall we rough him up a little?"

"No leave him be - he's weird - too weird even to rough up. He gives me the creeps."

After a while I got more confident in my ability and I flew further. I flew to my school and peeked in through the windows, all lit up and all the chairs and desks all empty. I tried flying higher. It's tiring at first, but you get used to it. I guess it's like building up muscle, it gets easier the harder you try, but you have to watch out that you don't over do it. It takes a lot of concentration at first. After a while it's like a part of your brain can keep it going and leave the rest of you free to enjoy things a little more.

"Good morning, Ruben. I said, good morning, Ruben!"

Eventually I started to explore further - out to the edge of the city where the lights start to thin out. The countryside beyond is darker, mysterious. I was drawn to it, I guess. I wanted to know more, experience my new abilities to their full potential. I flew out over the dark countryside. I could make out the occasional river or stream below in the starlight. I could pick out a dark highway when a speeding car's headlights showed it up beneath me. Sometimes I'd swoop down and travel real fast just above the treetops. How fast I don't know. It felt fast, very fast.

"Are you with us today Ruben? Hmmm, apparently not."

You have to watch out that you don't fly out too far from the city and forget your way back. The very first time I did this I almost lost control. That's dangerous, you must never panic when you fly. Panic can tear you out of the sky quicker than anything else; you have to keep your mind firmly on what you are doing. I stayed cool and headed for the nearest and biggest glow in the sky. Towns and cities show up like that, an orange light-glow in the darkness. I picked up a highway and followed the traffic in. It was easy to keep pace with the cars. I could even overtake them with ease. How fast I flew I don't know, maybe the cars were going fifty miles an hour, but I had no problem. Soon I was back in familiar sky-space and I recognised my school below. It was easy then to find my way back home.

"That boy is in a world of his own, I just can't get through to him."

"Maybe he's autistic or something?"

"No way. Have you seen his marks? The kid's real bright, don't let him fool you. He's just different that's all."

After a while I got brave enough to go further still. You get to know your way around. I guess it's instinct or something. You develop a sense of direction even though it's dark. Moonlit nights are amazing, but it's risky to fly at full moon. People might see you. You have to watch out for clouds as well. They can get you lost as easy as anything. They kind of mesmerise you, especially when there's moonlight on them. They get all silvery white and you just can't resist diving in and out of them. If there are lots of small ones then it's really good fun to cloud dance. They look solid enough in the moonlight, but they're just vapour, they're only like mist, nothing but mist and you can punch right through them no trouble at all.

"He's weird if you ask me."

"Well he may be weird, but he's no trouble in class and if he's no trouble and he gets good marks then he can be as weird as he likes as far as I'm concerned!"

It was one night when I was checking out a neighbouring town that I saw my first Luftmensch. I was on my way back home and as it was a half-moon that night, I was enjoying myself swooping and diving around some long lines of fluffy cumulus. Above me, the sky was clear all the way up to the stars and I was thinking to myself how wonderful it was to be able to do this. I was also feeling kind of sad that I couldn't tell anyone about my abilities. Then, I saw him out in front of me. I didn't feel surprised or anything - I felt thankful, yes thankful that I was not the only boy in the world who could do this thing. He was about my age I imagine and he was doing the same as me. Playing among the clouds just like a dolphin on a ship's bow wave. The guy could really fly though. He was soaring like a swallow, and he seemed totally oblivious to my presence.

"It's like he's in a different world. He doesn't even acknowledge the existence of the other kids."

"He's lucky - I wish I could forget they existed!"

Beneath us the clouds thickened into a milky smooth layer and then he was skimming across the tops, leaving a wispy trail in his wake. I dived down and got right on his tail. For a while I followed him, copying his every move, unobserved, but he must have sensed me there behind him. He turned and just smiled at me. It was the strangest, most beautiful thing and my mind just filled with this warm glow. That's when I knew for the first time what they were. I could hear him, but not in words. The Luftmensch don't use words. They don't need them. They left words behind when they left the Earth behind, I guess. I could read his thoughts and I knew at that same moment that he could read mine.

"Maybe he's retarded."

"Maybe the kid is a genius."

We flew along together, side by side in formation, diving this way and that. He was some flyer. I tried to follow his every move, but I was an amateur compared to him. I began to get worried that I might be straying too far away from home. He seemed to sense my concern and pointed the way for me. I waved goodbye and headed off home before I got too tired. We didn't have to say anything, we just knew it was OK and that we would fly together again. I was so happy now that I knew I was no longer alone and I could share the sky with someone else.

"So, Ruben found his way home from school again!"

"You sound like you're disappointed."

"No, just surprised is all - I'm always surprised that he remembers where he lives!"

The next time I flew over that way I saw the same guy again along with a few of his friends. As soon as they saw me they made me welcome. Don't ask me how, I just knew I was welcome. Pretty soon we were in a loose formation doing all kinds of stuff. Wow! I sure learned a thing or two that night, I can tell you.

"I tell you it's not natural for a kid his age to sleep so much. When I was his age I was out every night enjoying myself - and he has no friends - no one at all."

"Does he look unhappy? No, he does not. Ruben is a happy kid. You can tell he's happy just by looking at him."

The other thing that you have to take very seriously when you fly is the weather. Now, you wouldn't go out on the ocean if the weather was going to be bad and it's the same with the sky. In fact, the sky is far more dangerous than the ocean. Rain is one thing you have to avoid if possible. It makes your clothes get all sodden and heavy and it stings your face so you can't concentrate. I always checked the weather forecast every night. If the guy said it was going to rain, I didn't fly.

"Maybe I should talk to his teachers or something. Maybe he's got a problem at school, maybe he's being bullied or something."

You need some warm clothes as well. You can get cold pretty quick even in the summer time up there. I got myself one of those fur-lined hats with ear flaps you can pull down and fasten under the chin and I'd wear a scarf and my leather jacket. Of course, the summer nights are not so bad, but they're shorter than in the winter, so you don't get to spend so much time flying. A cold, crisp star-spangly winter night can be really something.

"Keep your nose out of his school, you'll embarrass the kid. He can look after himself OK. He's nearly six feet tall already and he's only fifteen!"

It was on a real star-spangly night that I ran into my first girl-Luftmensch, or should I say I almost flew into her. I was on my own just cruising along, gazing up at the Milky Way. Do you know how many stars there are up there? Billions and billions. When you look at the Milky Way you are actually looking clear through our galaxy. Of course, you can't see it at all down on the ground - the air is too dirty and the light-glow from the city just blots out the stars.

"I'm worried that he'll be different, you know? Like he won't be normal and meet a nice girl and be happy."

There was no moon that night and the stars were really dazzling, the winter constellations are the most spectacular, in my opinion, Perseus, Taurus, Orion. Then all of a sudden - whoosh - she passed right by me going across my flight-way. We almost crashed into each other. Right away I got this jolt of shock from her. I was pretty shook up myself. Then, there was that incredible warm feeling you get from a Luftmensch mind when it connects, but hers was something special. We both circled for a few minutes while we checked each other out, then by unspoken mutual consent we were off - just cruising along together under those beautiful stars for what seemed like hours - and it probably was.

"And who do you think he's gonna meet around this crummy neighbourhood?"

Before I knew it, I'd got really cold, so I thought I'd better go down and rest for a while before I went home. Suddenly though, she was in my mind saying "No! Don't do that!" I was surprised, but she came alongside me and told me in my head that the Luftmensch must never touch the ground while they are flying. I didn't know that. I'd always gone back home and schlopped back into my body when I got tired, you see. She told me that if you touch the ground then you'll never get back home, never ever again. That's when it really hit me. I was a Luftmensch - I was one of them.

That felt so good - to know I was one of them. Then, she reached out and grabbed my hand and I suddenly filled with her warmth. She was telling me to head for home and that she would come with me to make sure I made it OK. I was concerned about her though, but I needn't have worried. She picked up my thoughts and I knew she could find her way around OK. She was a great flyer. When we got back to my block, we didn't have to hang around and say goodbye and arrange anything for the future and all that stuff - we just knew we'd meet up again up there and we did. It was no problem, no problem at all.

"So, it's a crummy neighbourhood, but there are some nice people around here."

"Oh yeah? Like who?"

Every day I looked up at the sky and checked the winds and the clouds. I learned about the weather, the frontal systems, depressions and such. I noted the precipitation points, the altitudes the different cloud layers formed at, the temperature gradients and stuff. I even got an old barometer for my bedroom wall so I could check out the changes in air pressure. Every night I could, weather permitting, I would fly the Up and Out with my people. I would fly with the Luftmensch.

"Why does he have to meet a nice girl? As long as the kid's happy..."

"How can he be happy if he doesn't marry and settle down?"

"Marry? You have the kid married already? He's only fifteen for God's sake - let him enjoy life a little before you marry him off. Let the kid live a little, have some fun - let him spread his wings before you have somebody tie him down!"

Some nights there were hundreds of us up there. Who knows, there may even be thousands of us all over the world in other countries, maybe millions. I found out from Karen that the best nights of all were when the cloud layer is solid. I'd never chanced it before as I was scared of getting lost on my own, but she straightened me out on this. The best thing of all about a good, solid cloud layer is that you can fly at full moon. Wow! That's the most amazing time of all.

"More to the point is how the hell are we gonna keep him awake long enough to even look at a girl?"

"He'll wake up when he finds the right one."

The Luftmensch call it 'The Night of the Big Moon'. Imagine being up there among those clouds under that big silver moon. It's pretty amazing to think that down here on the ground nobody knows that when the moon is full and the sky is covered by cloud - the Luftmensch fly in the Up and Out.

"All that kid is interested in is the damn weather. He even video-tapes the forecasts!"

"It's healthy for a boy to have an interest in life - at least he's not a drop-out. At least he doesn't spend his time as high as a kite on drugs or something."

My first 'Night of the Big Moon' was in the springtime. There was something about that time of the year that I'd never really hooked into before. Living in the city you are kind of alienated from what the Earth is doing and feeling, I guess. There comes a time in the spring when the tide of life is at its peak. All that new-green-growing-stuff coming up through the Earth, the Luftmensch call it the 'Time of New-Lifeing'. When the tide of growing is at its height, then, there is this great big moon. It's like that moon has pulled all those growing things up out of the Earth, pulled them up to their full height, and they are straining to reach that moon, and then on that night it rises. You can feel it happen.

"What does he spend his time doing? He's nuts about the weather. The boy has his head in the clouds for God's sake! Where will being nuts about the weather get him? That's what I'd like to know!"

"I don't know what's going on in Ruben's head, but he looks happy enough to me."

That night I felt it happen even though I was a kid from the city where the 'New-Lifeing' is covered and killed in concrete and stone. In me at least it lived and I was going to be rising up there. I was so excited. I didn't need anyone to tell me - I just knew. We all knew. I couldn't wait for the day to end. I couldn't wait until that sun dipped down behind the tall buildings of the city. I watched and I waited and I knew it would happen. Sure enough, as the sky got dark the clouds came. They didn't hurry, they just moseyed across the sky in twos and threes so nobody noticed any different. Soon though, there were great long lines of them tip-toeing gently across the sky, causing no comment, arousing no one's interest except mine - and all the other Luftmensch all over the country, I imagine.

"It's not natural I tell you - no one of his age should look so happy. He's a teenager for God's sake - he should have problems! It's natural for teenagers to have problems!"

I got to bed real early and waited. Pretty soon I was asleep and I felt myself schlopp out of my body. I looked over to where the moon was rising. Yes, there it was, poking its face up over the horizon between the buildings, reaching up to those long lines of cloud, sneaking up behind them.

I tensed myself and then I rose up - up and out. Again, that feeling in the heart of me as the inner power started to flow. Up, up I rose over the crowded city. It was dark down there now, or at least as dark as it ever gets there. The light-glow of the streets was below me as I headed into the cool, clean air above - into the Up and Out.

I flew up and out beyond the lights to the dark places, climbing all the time and then I saw Karen, she had come to meet me and we'd found each other without any problem, no dates, times or arrangements - we just knew. The Luftmensch know these things without having to think about anything at all. It just happens like that and it's no problem - no problem at all.

"They don't have to have problems. Anyway, even when they do they don't have real problems; they just over react to everything. They're just practising for when life gives them something real to worry about!"

"Yeah, like when they have a kid of their own who hardly says a word and doesn't do anything but video-tape the weather forecasts and sleep fourteen hours a day!"

Karen smiled and our hands came together just like they always did when we flew. Together we rose up towards the soft under-cloud layer, soft and orange-grey in the darkness. One last look down and we went through the cloud, the vapour cool and soft, kissing our faces. For a few moments we saw nothing but the swirling mist and then we broke through and wow! What a sight! All around to the left and to the right there were other Luftmensch rising up, coming through the cloud layer, up and out into the star-spangle. Then over there, low down, Mr. Moon was coming up, up and out there with us, his face was big and orange-yellow, throwing his light across the cloudscape and what a cloudscape there was that night.

Far across the flowing, rolling, buttermilk cloud plains we could see the place to where everyone was headed. We edged towards each other, picking up formation with a whole bunch of other Luftmensch. We didn't wave and say "hi" like Grounders do. We just knew each other and the warmth filled us all, growing and spreading like we were all one together, rising up together into that other world, the Luftmensch world of the Up and Out.

"OK, so I admit his behaviour is a little unusual."

"Unusual? How unusual do you want it to get before we do something?"

Ahead was our destination - a towering mass of huge cloud castles were waiting for us - a great mountain range of cloud, creamy gold-tinged in the moonlight. The sight of those peaks evoked a great joy in me - in all of us. It flowed into us and through us, filling our whole being, our one-ness. We headed towards those cloud castles steadily, still climbing; all the time climbing. Karen threw a big burst of warm-glow at me - incredible excitement. I never knew such excitement and anticipation. The warm glow rippled through the minds of every Luftmensch in the formation.

The cloud-mountains were enormous, great ranges of billowing, churning snow cream. The closer we got to them the more we could see them moving, changing their shape, forming new turrets and battlements and then rolling over on themselves making new structures out of the tumbling wind borne vapour. They dominated the sky in front of us. How high I can't imagine, yet I had no fear of them, only joy.

Karen squeezed my hand and we soared up. It was like a new wave of power had come on song within our bodies. I wanted to laugh and cry out with joy, but I didn't need to. Everyone around me was feeling that same intense ecstasy. Every one of us knew.

"What can we do? Anyway, the kid is happy - how can there be anything wrong with a kid that is so happy?"

"It's not natural for him to be so happy - it's making me unhappy!"

These were my people, I had left the Earth behind and everything and everyone on it. The Earth was just the place I rested, where I slept. Here, up here in the Up and Out was where I belonged, this was where I really lived!

"So maybe YOU are the one with the problem?"

I'd never been so happy in my life. I'd never felt so complete. I was beginning to think less and less about the world down there and the people in it. I didn't hate them or despise them or anything like that - if anything I was sad for them, sad that they were so different, sad that they couldn't experience what I was experiencing. Mostly though, I didn't think about them at all. In the Up and Out you don't concern yourself with such things. Your mind is full, full and at one with your people.

"Ruben is the problem, can't you see that? He can't spend his life like this. How is he going to get through life spending fourteen hours a day in the sack and the other ten sleepwalking?"

"Hmmm, I could think of a few occupations that would suit him."

We reached the very top of the rolling cloud mountains and in a tight formation we skimmed over those huge moon-washed walls. Below us, it was like a whole new landscape opened up, huge valleys and chasms of cloud spread out before us, like the Grand Canyon in the sky, but a hundred times bigger and a thousand times more beautiful. I never in my life imagined anything so beautiful.

"You are not taking this seriously - we have a real problem here!"

"No, you are taking this thing far TOO seriously - YOU have the problem - not Ruben!"

Our whole formation dived down into that vast arena and there was this intense feeling coming up at us as if we were diving in to a great ocean of warm-glow. I could see all around other formations diving, spilling over the edge, down into that vast, moon-silvered valley. I knew it and I knew we all of us knew it. Karen and I held each other's hands tight, we flew together, yet we two were just a part of the Luftmensch, just a component of the whole. We knew that, we all knew that's why we were there in that place - to come together as a whole being.

"It's not right I tell you - I know it's not right - it's tearing me apart!"

What can I say about the things we did that first 'Night of the Big Moon'? I only have words and they are not enough. That is the problem with you Grounders, you have only words with which to communicate. I don't wish to sound like I'm putting you down or anything, but that's the way of things. The Luftmensch don't use words, we don't need them. We have out-grown them in a sense. You see, there are no words to describe the feelings, the emotions that we can feel. There are no words to describe the sights that we see and the experiences we experience.

"He's just a kid - he's just going through a phase - he'll grow out of it."

I could tell you that we dived down among those great cloud canyons. I could tell you that we flew in complex formations, in patterns of shape, speed and time that were the embodiments of the universal language of the cosmos. I could tell you that we met together there with the others of our kind and we danced and whirled in spirals and in circles, loops and waves, performing the matrix sky-dance shapes that formed the receptors and the reflectors of the universal mind-song.

I could tell you that we sang in the whistling choirs of the tumbling air in voiceless symphonies of mind music. I could tell you that we became one incredible composite aerial being, an entity of infinite variability, amalgamating and re-structuring in endless permutations of order among the chaos of the rolling, drifting silvery moon-cloud. Up and out; the tides of gravity, air, space, time and light form into the webs of impossible structures. Structures that held and formed the mental and emotional energies created by us into sightless visions of universal mind harmony, symphonies of un-hearable mind-sound that we vectored and channelled to the furthest corners of eternity. Yes, I could try to tell you of those things, but you wouldn't understand me and even if you could, you wouldn't believe me.

I could tell you about the other nights of the 'Big Moon' when the Luftmensch legions flew in the endless halls of the far-flung air ocean - high over the sleeping, silent Earth at the midnight hour. Nights at the peak of the summer solstice, when you can feel the pull of the sun tugging at the Earth. I could speak of the time when the air is filled with scents of the new cut corn at the 'Big Moon of the Harvest'. What songs we sung then in our minds and how they echoed back to us from the endless reaches of infinity. I could tell you how we flew at the big winter Hunter's Moon, when the frost-crystalled air rang to our mind-music and the stars themselves raised their eternal voices, cascading and phasing with us in the shimmering harmonies of a billion mind-worlds from a billion galaxies, singing as one, together.

"When will he grow out of it? It's a year already he's been like this!"

"So what do you want to do?"

I think we should get a doctor to take a look at him. Maybe he's ill or something."

"So take him to a doctor if you want - anything - but give me AND Ruben a break, will you - please?"

It got so that even while I rested earthbound I heard the echoes of those songs. They came to me in the waiting of the day when the bright sun looked down on me. I heard them somewhere beyond the mind-chatter of my fellow groundling earth beings in the word-babbling daylight hours. They called out to me, my Luftmensch brothers and sisters across the gulf of time and space, across the grey oceans and the mountain-blued distances of the lower world and Karen called out to me the clearest of all. In my mind I saw her, hair silver streaming, eyes a star sparkle, soaring against the solar mists of the eternal night.

And when the rain fell and the grey scatter-cloud tore across the sky, my heart bled for her and for my people. My soul burned in the empty deserts of the lower world, shrivelled in the grey wetness of the dirty pavements and the stinking traffic flow. I watched the drizzle torn shapeless sky shrouding for a glimpse of the heaven-blue and I prayed for the night to come so that I could awake and rise into the Up and Out and fly again with my sky-mate and my people.

"Well, I've given Ruben a thorough check out, and I can tell you there is absolutely nothing wrong with him at all."

"Nothing wrong with him? But, Doctor Klein, those things I told you about - the way he sleeps all the time and the way he just doesn't seem to be aware of anything that's going on around him. Surely that can't be right?"

Then the day came when I sensed something. Karen was trying to get through to me. She was in some kind of trouble, I knew. She was calling out to me to come to her, but the rain would not let up and I couldn't fly. She knew I couldn't fly - neither could she, but her heart was calling to me and all my people heard us calling and all their hearts bled for us in our pain.

"Well, there's nothing physically wrong with him at all. Some people just need to sleep longer than others. Ruben may not seem to be doing much physically to tire himself out, but he has a very active and unusual mind."

"What are you telling me here, Doctor? What is 'unusual'? Are you saying my Ruben is some kind of freak?"

I checked my barometer, but it was still unsettled. I was unsettled! I waited for the weather forecast at the end of the news broadcast and I taped it. I took it up to my room and I replayed the tape. I analysed the charts. Maybe the guy missed something; after all, the forecast they give is pretty general. Storms the guy said though and he was right - there were storms around, bad storms. I looked out of my window. The sky was clearing some, but I could read the signs in the sky. I could feel the uneasiness in the air.

"No, no, not at all, quite the opposite in fact. Ruben is a very bright boy indeed."

"Oh yeah? So why doesn't he shine a little more, huh - why doesn't he communicate?"

Karen was calling to me, in her pain she was calling to me. They were trying to ground her for good, trying to change her, trying to destroy her being. From all over I felt the pain of the Luftmensch mind - the composite mind. When one of us hurts we can all feel it, like a part of a body that is injured we can all feel that pain. Somewhere out there, the Grounders were trying to destroy her, trying to ground her, to tie her to the Earth forever.

"Look, this isn't really my field. I'm a general family physician. If you are really concerned about him, you should see a specialist."

"A specialist in what?"

I had to go to her, I couldn't leave her like that - I had to take the chance. My people called out to me, warning me. I felt their fear and their concern for me - I felt their prayers for me and for Karen. It wasn't even properly dark yet, but I had to go.

I schlopped out of my body and rose up into the Up and Out. The air was damp still from the earlier rain. It was still just light enough to see that there were other rain clouds around. Later it would be impossible - there would be no moon at all tonight, I would have to use my inner eyes, and my Luftmensch mind to find the way.

"Ruben has a very unusual mind, Mrs. Blum."

Right away I knew it would be difficult. There was a lot of charge in the air. My body even picked up a little St. Elmo's fire at one point. I hoped to God that no one down there would look up and see me. What a sight I must have been! It was pretty murky down there though, plenty of spray from the wet roads and stuff. There were layers of mist forming, the air was stilling. The calm before the storm. That phrase flashed into my mind.

"You said that already, but what does it mean - are you saying he's crazy or something?"

"No, no, not at all. I'm saying that if you are still concerned about him then he should see someone who specialises in the mind."

Then, I sensed that Karen was flying too. She was coming to meet me, climbing into the Up and Out just as I was. My heart raced and I trembled inside, the power of the Luftmensch rippled through me, all our people were with us - in our minds they were with us, beaming their strength and their love to us through the sky darkening air. Sure, I must be crazy to fly on a night like this, but what could I do? I flew faster, higher.

"A psychiatrist? Oh my God - you say my son needs to see a psychiatrist?"

Ahead of me the storm rose up - a great barrier of tumbling cloud. It was enormous, far too big to fly around and there was not much time. I would have to try and go over it. The upper pinnacles of the anvil were fanning out, pink-white in the last rays of sunglow. Below them, the blue-grey ramparts of the towering cumulo-nimbus were boiling, lightning shimmering in the purple mauve interior shrouding the Earth shadowing gloom. Down there it was already night. Up here, there was a solid wall of light-fading, streaking pink, rising towards the stratosphere, barring my way. But I couldn't let it stop me. If I could not fly over it then I must punch through that wall.

At that height it was only my sheer speed forcing air into my lungs that kept me conscious at all. Up there the pressure can make you dopey, the cold can send you to sleep before you know it and then you're dead. Falling from up there, your mind frazzled by the altitude, you would have no chance to recover. Even the biggest airplanes avoid cumulo-nimbus cloud. The electrical discharges are colossal and the interior is a madness of hail and supercooled water droplets soaring upwards at unbelievable speed. There was no alternative though. I held out my arms like I was the man of steel himself. I closed my eyes and punched my way through.

The cold was intense and I flew with one arm shielding my face. I couldn't open my eyes, but there was nothing to see in the black interior of the storm. I could sense the great flashes of electricity around me, disorientating me, making me unsure as to whether I was still flying straight ahead. The wind currents were violent, more powerful than anything I'd ever flown in before. I couldn't tell which way I was flying, my sense of direction was destroyed in the shrieking madness, but somewhere in my mind I could hear Karen calling to me, faint and distorted by the energies of the storm.

How long I was in there I don't know. The winds and the sheets of supercooled hail beat me to a pulp it seemed. I held my head to protect it from the blasting; I was in so much pain that I could no longer concentrate at all. I didn't know whether I was flying or falling and it got so that I no longer cared. If only I could see her one last time, that's all I cared about.

Then at last I was out free in the clear, clean air and I was falling. I cried out in pain and fear. How high was I? How far had I already fallen? My body felt as cold and as numb as the ice itself, I tried to move my limbs and my body cracked, ice splinters forced loose, torn off by my passage through the air. I'd been coated with ice like a human hailstone. I had to free myself - I had to concentrate and stop my hurtling body from falling - I had to fly. From somewhere I could feel the whole Luftmensch mind connecting with me, filling me with its strength. I felt the warm-glow energy flow in my frozen heart and then I managed to change trajectory from straight down to a curving dive. I twisted my body into a streamlined shape crying out in my pain as the forces tore at me. I screamed at the wind torn air. Gravity, that one irreconcilable force-enemy of the Luftmensch pulled at me, tried to drag me down to my death, but I had changed my flight-way and I was in control now, changing the dive into a long, shallowing curve. Could I pull myself up in time or would I run out of air and smack into the Earth below?

"So that's what he said, he's a doctor and he should know."

"Well I'm his grandmother and I know better, I'm telling you!"

Then, miraculously she was there with me, her hand in mine. The warm-glow shot into our bodies. Together we were stronger and together we could connect into the power of the whole Luftmensch mind that was beaming at us, filling us with their love and their strength. Together we straightened the curve, we were flying level now, travelling at tremendous speed, the wind of our passage tearing at our faces, our eyes streaming with tears of pain and joy. We cried out together, cried out at the wind - our voices echoing together across the blue-black canyons of the night air.

We slowed then and as we did she pulled me to her and kissed me. We were descending, gently then as if the energy was gradually draining, slowly leaking away into the night air around us. Then I knew that our time together was over. The Luftmensch cannot fly forever you see. They are just a stage in a development, just a phase that can be achieved and passed through - like the chrysalis into the butterfly. Our time was almost over. Our rain sodden clothes were dragging us down, but we clung to each other and we were happy, so happy. We could feel the whole Luftmensch mind with us. Great unfathomable waves of emotion borne to us through the blue night air, waves of joy and sadness, hope and love. Even the distant storm rumbled and shimmered farewell to us. Even the stars themselves looked down on us with love.

"So you're his grandmother, that doesn't make you Sigmund Freud or something! What do you know about my poor Ruben's mind?"

"I know my daughter's mind - that's what I know! Let him be what he is - let him BE!"

Slowly and so gently we drifted, as if some immense, benign hand was lowering us to the Earth below. I remembered her words on that first night we met - high above in the Up and Out-star-spangle. If you touch the ground, then you'll never get back home, never ever again. I could see the ground coming up to meet us. I tried to rise up, with all my heart and soul I tried, we both tried, but we knew that it was gone. Our feet wriggled and then we touched the Earth.

Karen was fading, but her hand still held on to mine. I looked down at my hand, my body - I was fading, fading away into nothingness. I felt her warm-glow, I felt the warm-glow of the whole Luftmensch mind, fading.

"Why waste money on a psychiatrist? I can tell exactly what's wrong with the boy - nothing - nothing at all. Ruben is just a dreamer - a Luftmensch - a person who lives in the air. Maybe he'll be an actor or a writer or something - maybe he'll make movies - who knows?"

The dream was, as always, so real and as always, I so wanted to remain there in that other reality. I was sad that I had to leave it now and go back - back to the 'real' world and even though it was gone now, I lay there hanging on to its memory, its substance. So real, always so real, yet now gone - until the next time?

"An actor? My son the actor? Oh my God, what did I do to deserve this?"

"Could be worse - actors make money."

"Some actors make money - most of them end up as waiters."

So what does this dream mean? As I said at the beginning, I would say the ability to fly, mid-way between Earth and Heaven, relates symbolically to a spiritual elevation. Perhaps it is a way of illustrating that we have an ability, a gift, an insight that is suppressed, hidden within ourselves and that when we allow it to emerge - then it will enable us to soar to new heights - new levels of existence.

"A writer then?"

"My son the writer? Hmmm, that's maybe not so bad. I could maybe get used to that."

Now, the dream is gone for ever, but there are times, times when I can't wait for the sun to go down behind the tall buildings of the city and for that big copper coloured moon to rise up into the evening sky. And when the clouds are drifting in lines, like silver-sailed galleons across the star-spangled ocean of the blue-black night, something calls to me, something wise and warm-glowing, something wonderful. Then I look up and I know my heart is with them.