Aiden's Dream

In his dreams, flying was easy for Aiden. He would summon his magnetic flux field to levitate, simply apply an impulse vector, and off he’d go. He loved to take Conner with him. Conner would climb effortlessly from his wheelchair and lay on his Dad’s back, face nestled between Aiden’s neck and shoulder. In tandem, they would climb high into the sky, attacking the morning’s golden clouds.

“Oh I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings …”

Together, they would swoop down from on high to skim close above the Bitterroot River, stalking Cutthroat and Rainbow trout as the fish plucked bugs off the water’s surface. Now back up they went, father and son, above vast wheat fields out east, through mountain passes, caught and lifted ever higher by thermals rising from the mountain ridges.

“Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of – Wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence … Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.”

Conner would laugh with delight, ecstatic to be freed from his shackled prison. Aiden pressed to extend the dream, the warmth, the closeness, the love so crushing and so intense. In his helplessness, this dream of flight was his gift to Conner, the best he could do for his damaged son. Waking, all that remained was to curse providence and vow to seek paths that unsealed Conner from his fate.