So this guy I know, he decides he wants to know what it feels like to fly.

He shared this with me the other day, and I laughed at him. He says shit like this all the time. You just laugh, think how it would be funny if it really happened, then let it slip through that backdoor of your mind where all the thoughts escape that aren't really noteworthy. "Right. He's gonna fly. Man, that'd be something to see, him flapping his arms all the way to the ground..." Chuckle, go on with whatever I was doing.

The next day, I see him at work. I'm coming in (5 minutes late like I always do), and he's standing in the lobby with a duffel bag slung high over his left shoulder. He's anxious, and I guess he was waiting for me. "Hey Bri, come with me. I need your help, it's really important." I try to protest how I should be getting to my desk since I'm already 5 minutes late (like I always am), but he's not listening and I'm really not that dedicated to my job. He leads me to the elevator, then up to the top floor. We get off, then take damaged looking stairs to the door, which we pull open with respectable effort.

I'm enveloped by the blinding light as the sun slants above the skyline at 8:10 in the morning. I turn away so as to open my eyes, and find the city laid out at my feet. It's a shame, they make it so hard to get up to places like this. The rest of the building is black, sleek, futuristic, polished. I appreciate the cut lines of the lobby, the dark overtone of the architecture. But up here, it's surreal. I'm existential; I float above the shapes that crawl below me. There shouldn't be obscure side-doors for an experience like this view.

So anyway, I figure this guy wants a cigarette and has some story to tell me. I pull my pack, extract my last Lucky Strike and torch it. For some reason, cigarettes always taste so good in the early morning.

I look up and offer my lighter to the guy, but he's digging through his duffel bag. "What are you doing?" I ask with no real interest, only slight curiosity at what he might have. He doesn't answer, only continues rummaging until he pulls out a spiral-bound notebook, simple and glaring white on both sides. "That's weird" I think. "Never seen one of those with colored backs." It actually glimmers in the morning sunlight, contrasting with the sharp wind that will bite for another two hours or so before the day heats up. This notebook is strange, captivating, and I don't understand why. It's something novel, yet possibly meaningful. I'm starting to wonder what's in it.

He's smiling now. He's happy. Jesus, he's fucking giddy, but he's controlled about it. I'm getting anxious now. It feels like something's happening, something's about to happen. I don't fully understand what's going on. The sun is feeding energy to us; it flows through the light and the wind. It feels like a new world up here, created from scratch while we slept. It's undisturbed on this rooftop, docile yet vivacious.

He turns to me, still smiling, and throws the notebook on the ground, where it slides to a stop at my feet. "Read it," I hear. I open to the first sheet of paper, surprisingly white, nearly the color of the cover. The words are red, bright red, written with increasing intensity as my eye descends down the page. His handwriting is beautiful, clean yet stylish. I read:

"The secret to flying is not necessarily in the physical act. Humans may be able to actually fly, as there has probably been very little serious effort toward this goal. However, this is very unlikely. The overlooked aspect, the key to flying, is that of anticipation. When a person travels through the air by force of gravity, they are truly flying. The problem is a failure of being able to stop said flight by means other than a physical barrier (the ground). If a person were able to focus on the experience of flying itself, as opposed to the fear which manifests at the prospect of injury, they would then be flying. While falling through the air, as long as you believe that you can fly, that you can stop yourself at will, you will not experience fear of injury. You really would be flying. For the experience of flying, for the euphoria of weightlessness, it would be reasonable to go to lengths necessary to make this possible. What would you give to truly be free, even if only briefly? To know that you can fly is godlike. Just think- what will you do with this day, if not fly?"

I start to look up. "What the fuck is th..." He turns to me from his new position on the edge of the roof, standing as a picturesque silhouette, outlined by the rising sun. I squint and see that he is still smiling, balancing perfectly on the ledge. "What will you do with this day?" flashes through me. He stretches out his arms, closes his eyes for the length of a breath. He opens them again, leans his head straight up toward the sky, and falls backward into nothing, eleven stories up. I ran to the edge and leaned over, but for some reason, I couldn't see him falling.

Somehow I knew that wherever he had flown to, he was still smiling.

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