Learning To Fly

I stood at the edge and looked down.

It was a long way.

Far below me, the world stretched away in shapes and colors that seemed almost unreal from such a height. I could see the dark green of trees, the lighter patches of open ground, the thin suggestion of a road winding through it all. Everything looked very small.

I moved closer.

There was nothing between me and the emptiness now.

The wind came up from below and passed over me, gentle at first, then stronger. I felt it move around me and continue on, as though it had somewhere to go.

I didn't.

Not anymore.

I had come as far as I could.

I don't know how long I stood there. Time seemed different at the edge. There was only what lay behind me and what lay ahead, and neither offered anything I could understand.

I looked down again.

The distance frightened me.

Of course it did.

I knew what would happen if I stepped forward.

Or I thought I did.

There are moments when fear is not enough to stop you. Moments when all the reasons for remaining where you are somehow become smaller than the single reason you cannot stay.

This was one of those moments.

I moved forward until there was almost nothing beneath me.

The wind rose again.

For an instant, I hesitated.

Then I stepped off.

The world dropped away.

Or perhaps I did.

There was no longer anything beneath me. The solid certainty of the edge vanished so completely that for one terrible instant I wanted it back.

Oh no.

What have I done?

I fell.

The air rushed past me. The ground below seemed to grow larger with impossible speed. What had appeared distant only moments before was coming closer.

Yet something strange happened.

The fear disappeared.

I was still falling. Nothing had changed about that.

But the decision was over.

There was no edge anymore. There was no choice left to make. There was nothing to cling to and nothing to release.

There was only the fall.

And somehow, that was peaceful.

I stopped fighting what was happening.

For a moment longer, I watched the world rising toward me.

Then I looked away.

I looked out.

The sky was enormous.

I had never understood how enormous.

It stretched farther than anything I had ever known, blue and brilliant and without walls. The horizon curved away into distances I could not measure. Great white clouds drifted beneath the sunlight, their edges glowing.

And there was so much room.

I forgot about the ground.

I opened myself to the sky.

The air caught me.

There was no violent jolt. No sudden rescue.

The fall simply changed.

Down became forward.

The rushing air that had seemed determined to carry me toward the earth now lifted me away from it. I felt myself rise, and without thinking, I turned.

Perfectly.

The sky moved around me.

I climbed.

I knew what to do.

I had always known.

The realization came with such certainty that I almost laughed.

Perhaps I did.

I swept upward into the sunlight, higher and higher, and joy rose inside me with every passing moment. Not relief. Not merely relief.

Joy.

Pure, astonishing joy.

I turned again, and the world rolled gently beneath me.

The landscape was still there. Trees gathered in dark patches. Fields spread out in irregular shapes. A road wandered between them, going somewhere that had once seemed important. Farther away, water caught the sunlight and flashed silver.

Nothing below had changed.

And yet it all looked different.

Beautiful, even.

Just smaller.

I climbed until the wind grew cooler. Then I let myself drift upon it.

There was no effort in it.

For the first time, I understood the wind that had passed me at the edge. It had not been going anywhere.

It had simply been free.

I moved with it.

I rose when it rose. I swept downward when I wanted speed, feeling the air rush past me until happiness became something almost physical. Then I climbed again, higher than before, into a great open place where the sunlight seemed to belong to everything.

I turned simply because I could.

I soared because I could.

And I laughed because there was nothing else to do with so much happiness.

The earth passed quietly beneath me.

For so long, I had known only the ground.

Now there was sky above me, sky before me, and somehow it seemed there was sky within me too.

I didn't understand why I had not known.

Perhaps I wasn't supposed to know.

Not until the edge.

Not until the fall.

I looked toward the horizon.

There was nothing there that I recognized.

For once, that did not frighten me.

It delighted me.

I leaned into the wind and felt it carry me faster. The sunlight warmed me. The world opened wider ahead.

I knew then, with a certainty deeper than thought, that this was what I had been made to do.

So I flew.

Not toward anything.

Not away from anything.

I simply flew.

And the horizon waited for me beneath an endless sky.

The Tribes - Operation Acornfall

Every day at nearly the exact same moment, the giant arrived.

He came stomping down the forest trail with all the subtle grace of a falling tree, carrying his strange black seeing-box around his neck and wearing the most baffling hat Flynn had ever witnessed.

Two round ears protruded from the top of it.

Not squirrel ears.

Not fox ears.

Not even respectable raccoon ears.

Mouse ears.

Flynn stared from the branch above and shook his head slowly.

“I ask you,” he whispered gravely, “how can a species survive while dressing like prey?”

Below him, Rootrick Splinterpaw nodded with wide-eyed admiration.

“It is disgraceful,” Rootrick agreed.

Skitterleaf rolled her eyes.

“It is a hat.”

“It is a declaration of weakness,” Flynn corrected.

Pippin Barkdash twitched nervously from a nearby branch.

“He’s coming,” Pippin whispered. “Maybe we should reconsider this.”

“No,” Flynn said dramatically. “Today… we restore dignity to the forest.”

Skitterleaf sighed.

“Oh good. Another speech.”

Flynn leapt onto an old stump overlooking the trail below. Around him, young members of the Firstbranch Tribe crouched beside carefully gathered piles of acorns.

Far too carefully gathered.

Flynn had spent nearly an hour organizing them into “tactical distribution clusters,” which mostly meant piles of acorns in different sizes.

“The giant has tromped through our territory for many cycles,” Flynn announced, pacing atop the stump. “He crashes through leaves, startles birds, points his seeing-box at everyone, and worst of all…”

Flynn pointed dramatically toward the approaching trail.

“…he wears the ears of lesser creatures.”

Rootrick gasped softly.

Skitterleaf muttered, “They are decorative.”

“We cannot allow such disrespect,” Flynn continued. “Today, Operation Acornfall begins.”

Pippin raised one trembling paw.

“What exactly is the objective of Operation Acornfall?”

Flynn smiled.

“To humble the giant.”

Rootrick nearly fainted from excitement.

---

The giant appeared moments later.

The ground shook rhythmically beneath his boots as he wandered slowly along the trail, occasionally lifting the black seeing-box to his face.

Click.

Click.

The machine blinked with its strange glass eye.

“Positions,” Flynn whispered.

The young squirrels scattered into carefully selected branches above the trail.

To Flynn’s credit, the operation was surprisingly well organized.

Skitterleaf controlled the left flank.
Pippin served as lookout.
Rootrick handled ammunition transport.
Two younger squirrels waited above with reserve acorns.

Flynn himself occupied the central bombardment branch.

The giant stopped directly beneath them.

Perfect.

Flynn lifted one paw.

Every squirrel froze.

The forest fell silent except for distant wind in the leaves.

Flynn grinned.

Then he dropped the first acorn.

Thunk.

The acorn bounced harmlessly off the giant’s backpack.

The human stopped.

Slowly, he looked around.

Above, the squirrels held perfectly still.

The giant shrugged and continued walking.

Flynn’s eyes widened with delight.

“It works,” he whispered.

He gave the signal again.

Thunk.

Thunk.

A second acorn struck the giant’s shoulder.

A third bounced off his ridiculous mouse-ear hat.

The giant stopped again.

This time he looked upward suspiciously.

Flynn flattened himself against the branch.

Below, the giant narrowed his eyes.

“Oh, you little jerks,” he muttered.

Rootrick looked astonished.

“He suspects nothing.”

Flynn nodded proudly.

“Primitive minds rarely grasp tactical superiority.”

Then everything went wrong.

Pippin panicked first.

“The seeing-box is looking at us!” he squeaked.

Indeed, the giant had lifted the black machine upward toward the branches.

Click.

Click.

“He’s documenting the operation!” Flynn hissed.

Rootrick became overexcited and accidentally dumped his entire reserve pile at once.

Acorns exploded downward like hailstones.

The giant yelped.

“HEY!”

Another young squirrel lost grip on an enormous acorn nearly the size of his own head.

It plummeted directly onto the brim of the mouse-ear cap.

WHOMP.

The hat flew sideways.

The giant staggered backward in disbelief.

High above, Flynn panicked and attempted what he would later describe as “an advanced tactical finishing maneuver.”

What this actually meant was leaping to another branch while carrying three acorns in his mouth.

He collided directly with Pippin.

Both squirrels tumbled through leaves in a screeching blur.

Acorns erupted everywhere.

The forest descended into chaos.

“RETREAT!” Skitterleaf shouted.

“You said this was organized!” Pippin screamed.

“It WAS organized!” Flynn yelled back while dangling upside down briefly from a twig.

Below them, the giant now stood in the middle of a full acorn bombardment.

He looked upward in absolute disbelief as squirrels scrambled wildly between branches.

Then...

to Flynn’s horror...

the giant started laughing.

Not angry laughing.

Amused laughing.

“Oh, you absolutely did that on purpose,” the giant said, raising the seeing-box again.

Click.
Click.
Click.

“He is collecting evidence!” Flynn shouted.

The squirrels fled into the upper canopy.

---

The scolding came later that evening.

Elder Bristlethorn waited upon a broad branch near the Hollow of Memory while Flynn and his exhausted companions sat in a deeply uncomfortable line.

No one spoke.

Bristlethorn looked at them quietly.

Then he looked at the acorn fragments still stuck in Flynn’s fur.

“Would someone,” Bristlethorn said calmly, “like to explain why a repeat forest observer carrying a visual recording device was subjected to a coordinated aerial assault?”

Silence.

Finally Flynn cleared his throat.

“In fairness,” he began carefully, “the giant was wearing mouse ears.”

Skitterleaf covered her face with both paws.

Rootrick whispered, “It did look ridiculous.”

Bristlethorn closed his eyes briefly.

“You organized this?”

Flynn straightened slightly.

“Yes.”

“With assigned positions?”

“…yes.”

“With ammunition reserves?”

“…possibly.”

Pippin raised one paw weakly.

“I said it was dangerous.”

“You participated,” Skitterleaf snapped.

“I was pressured by leadership!”

Bristlethorn sighed deeply.

“Young squirrels,” he said, “must understand something important about humans.”

The group listened.

“They are dull-witted creatures.”

Flynn nodded confidently.

“Yes.”

“But,” Bristlethorn continued, “they are not entirely dull-witted.”

Flynn’s confidence weakened slightly.

“When acorns fall naturally,” Bristlethorn said, “they do not usually strike hats in coordinated succession.”

“That may have been coincidence,” Flynn offered.

“Flynn.”

“Yes?”

“You attempted what witnesses describe as a ‘finishing maneuver.’”

Rootrick looked impressed again.

Bristlethorn fixed Flynn with a long stare.

“One observant human can become a problem.”

The branch grew quiet.

Far below, somewhere along the forest trail, the giant was probably still examining photographs and wondering if squirrels could organize military operations.

Flynn scratched the back of his neck.

“…do you think he knows?”

Bristlethorn looked out into the darkening forest.

“No,” the Elder said.

Then after a pause:

“But he suspects.”

The younger squirrels exchanged nervous looks.

And despite himself…

Flynn grinned.

Somehow, that made the whole thing even better.

The Life of Matthias de Véreaux - Author's Notes

The Life of Matthias de Véreaux

Seigneur of Montclair

---

Author’s Notes

An Interview About The Life of Matthias de Véreaux 

 

After finishing the story of The Life of Matthias de Véreaux, I thought it might be interesting to explain where the story came from. The origin of this story is unusual, and the experience behind it has stayed with me for many years.

To make this easier to explain, I’ve presented these notes in the form of a short interview.

---

What first inspired the character of Matthias de Véreaux?

The actual name was created later, but the story itself came from a very long and vivid dream I had several years ago.

In that dream, I experienced all of this as if I were actually living it. I experienced Matthias’s life, the moment of his death, and even what happened afterward.

This story is actually a prequel to another story I wrote years ago called “A Haunted Soul.” That story takes place after Matthias’s death, when he awakens outside the château as a lonely spirit who walks the grounds for hundreds of years.

In the dream, I experienced all of that.

I experienced the full passage of time.

When I eventually came out of the dream and became myself again, it was a tremendous shock.

---

Was Matthias’s personality something you created later when writing the story?

No.

That was exactly who Matthias was in the dream.

In the dream, I was Matthias. I experienced everything he experienced. His thoughts, his habits, and his life all felt as detailed and real as my own life feels now.

---

Did the town of Montclair and Matthias’s daily life come from the dream as well?

The basic scenes did.

I remembered many parts of the town, the forest, and the château, but I didn’t remember every detail perfectly. As I wrote the story, I had to recreate certain smaller details to fill in the gaps where memories had faded.

When I first woke up from the dream years ago, I had already forgotten a great deal of it.

Recently, however, something happened in my life that unexpectedly brought those memories back very clearly. That is why I decided to write the story now, after all this time.

---

In the story, Matthias feels deeply connected to the people of Montclair even though he still feels somewhat distant from them. Did you feel that in the dream as well?

Yes.

In the dream, I did not feel close to my own family at all. But I still felt a very strong instinctive need for family.

The town filled that role as much as it possibly could.

Even then, I still felt like something of a visitor among them. I cared deeply about the people of the town, but there was always a sense that I stood slightly apart from them.

---

The scene of Matthias’s death is very vivid in the story. Did you experience that moment in the dream as well?

Yes.

I experienced Matthias’s death in that exact and very detailed way. It still haunts me to this day.

I would challenge anyone reading this to try to imagine what the moment of their own murder would feel like and how it would affect them.

It is not something easily forgotten.

---

Did the part about Matthias existing as a spirit for hundreds of years also occur in the same dream?

Yes.

It was all one enormous dream, and I experienced the full passage of those centuries.

When I began waking up from the dream, it felt like I was floating upward from the bottom of a lake toward the surface of the waking world.

The higher I rose, the more the memories began to slip away.

I remember desperately telling myself to remember what I had experienced, because I could feel it disappearing.

I was losing myself as Matthias and returning to my waking self.

---

While you were dreaming, did it feel like you were watching Matthias’s life or actually living it?

I was him.

I experienced the dream as Matthias.

Occasionally I would remember my waking self, but those moments never lasted long. When they happened, I sometimes thought my waking life might actually be the dream.

Then the experience would pull me back into Matthias’s life again.

---

When you wrote the earlier story, “A Haunted Soul,” did you already know Matthias’s full life story?

Not completely.

At that time, I only clearly remembered the moment of his death and his existence as a spirit afterward. I remembered pieces of his life, but not enough to tell the full story.

Only recently did the rest of those memories return to me.

There are things from that dream that still affect me deeply even now.

---

Did anything about Matthias become clearer to you while writing this story?

Yes.

The way he lived his life inside the château.

As I was writing the story, I realized that my own life today resembles that lifestyle in some surprising ways. I now live in a very similar quiet, thoughtful way without realizing that I had experienced something like it years earlier in that dream.

---

What do you hope readers take away from this story?

More than anything, I simply wanted to share the experience.

It was something very heavy in my life, and writing the story feels almost like a form of therapy.

Sometimes telling a story is the only way to make sense of something that stayed with you for a long time.

---

After writing the full story, do you understand the dream any better?

Not really.

It is still mysterious to me why it happened or how I was able to experience the passage of time the way I did.

But writing the story has given me a new insight into Matthias himself.

It made me realize that he was not so different from me after all.

---

And if you ever find yourself wondering what became of Matthias after that night in the château hallway, his story does not end there. In another tale I once wrote, titled A Haunted Soul, his long and lonely journey continues.

After all, some lives do not truly end when the body falls - sometimes they simply continue in quieter ways.

---

(If you liked this story, leave me a comment to encourage me to write more.)