This Is Reality

She lay on her back, looking up at the sky. The wind ran its fingers through her hair, softly whispering of the joys of flight. This was nothing new. She'd always dreamt of flying, of being whisked away, spinning wherever the wind blew.

She knew she couldn't, of course. Humans didn't fly. They didn't have wings, and they were too heavy to simply float on the very air they breathed. Her shoulders, aching from the cold that seeped through the hard, immovable, earthbound stone reminded her of that. She had no wings, and she was too heavy to fly.

She did so want to fly.

She thought about the old, rotting, ivy-wreathed roof upon which she lay. The building that had been abandoned like a children's toy, left to rust in the night. She would not go like that, she vowed. She would not become nothing more than a decaying, crumbling wreck. She didn't want to become nothing more than a wizened pebble that dreamed it was a bird.

No, not that. Never that.

She might not be able to fly, but the wind promised something else. Falling. Yes. She could fall as easily as a leaf from a tree.

She stood calmly, rolling her shoulders to try and relieve the ache, and walked to the edge of the roof. She looked down, and enjoyed the the flips her stomach did at the sight. All she had to was lean forward. She wouldn't even have to take a single step.

But no. She wouldn't just fall off of this building as easily as she might step off a curb. The wind had spoken to her of flight all throughout her life. If she was going to do this, then she wasn't going to it the best try she could.

She turned, took slow, measured steps away from the roof. She knew that they would the last she ever took.

Then she spun around on her heel and ran.

She ran right off the edge, projecting herself into empty space. Her arms flailed wildly, and the wild, fey cry that tried to burst from her was forced back down her throat by the rushing wind, the wind that forced tears from her eyes and the breath from her lungs, the wind that whispered to her as softly as a dream upon waking of the difference between floating leaves and falling girls.