I Fell Away from the Sun

    Flight. The highest aspiration of humanity. A new world. Freedom from the darkest of dungeons. I flew to escape such a place, where the rats are at odds with the malnutrition to see which will kill a person first. The stones of my cell were rough, scraping against the torn callouses of my feet, and I bled for so long that I did not recall the memory of wholeness. I and my father lived alone in this dungeon atop the highest tower of Crete. Our only company was the birds and the candles by which we read and created during the darkest hours of the night.
    Hope is found in creation, and it was by those birds and that wax that we created wings to fly. And our escape was sealed. To Naples, and we jumped from the highest window of that tower, soaring across the sea. Freedom was finally to be grasped. And there we found hope.
    The light of the glorious sun kissed our skin and my heart beat strong and proud. I twisted and spun, reveling in the light of newfound life. With flight in my grasp, something tugged at my heart; something primal, a desire so great that I was brought to tears.
    I was going to touch the sun.
    With a crack of my spine, my wings pressed hard against the air, turning my body skyward. Toward the sun. My heart beat wildly, my hands shivered even as sweat flowed down my body. Giddiness overtook my mind and I was short of breath. It was so close. The atmosphere around me was pierced by the sheer light and glory found in its depths. I reached out a trembling hand toward that ever burning flame. And I began to fall.
    My father watched in dismay as the candlewax that held my wings together melted in the heat of the sun and fell apart. I grasped for the sun one last time as droplets of liquid wax burned into my flesh and hardened. I fell, wind whistling by my ears, spinning to face my fate.
    The sea smashed against me and bones shattered within my broken body. My father knew that he could do nothing, and he flew on, tears streaming down his face. I have never seen my father cry.
    Now it is cold. The sea has closed around my body, and everything grows dark. The last of the air within my lungs floats toward its own freedom, taking with it red viscousness, dancing in the fading light. Creatures of spines and teeth brush up against me. It is so cold.

                        - Adapted from Greek mythology

    "You lift my battered soul, You mend my broken bones together..."

                        - Brave Saint Saturn