To Knock at Heaven's Door
#1 of Written Works
I wrote this a few years ago and I've decided to put it up here. It is the first but not the last of my creative writing endeavors. Please critique and comment. :)
The night began as any other; darkness sweeping away the heat to reveal in its wake a vast sea of shimmering diamonds. They beckoned. I obliged.
The initial rush! That first moment where gravity seems to let go before reminding you of its brutal nature. But when one's wings ache with excitement to take on the burden, the challenge, gravity's menace is seldom accounted for.
Swift, familiar currents of cool surged to meet my twin sails, outstretched to capture the upwelling tide of wind that swells up the mountainside each night, bringing with it all the scents of the reaching terrain below the peaks and precipices of the range which I roam.
Snout pointed eagerly opposite the orange-yellow bands of sky beyond the distant ranges of peaks and cliffs, my wings bore me high above the valleys and streams and out towards the plains, where the great white orb would soon make its entrance. The world below seemed so bleak and empty compared with the heavens above.
As the last slivers of dusk dropped from sight, I felt within my core some difference about this night I to this day cannot fully comprehend. Something called me, like a mother's call to a hatchling that has strayed too far. But it was not mother.
Something moved my wings to beat with more force, hastened my breath, caused my chin to lift upwards and my eyes to strain for something I knew I could not see, but felt was there. With quickened heartbeat I frantically sought out this sensation's source, somewhere on high.
There! Directly above, a point of light shone unlike any other, apart from its shimmering brethren in luster, size, and brightness. A thousand nights I had scanned these skies and not once gazed upon such delicate, burning beauty.
The world was lost to me within a single wingbeat - the canvas of darkness and shadow above and below dispersed, washed away by the purity of the light. All the world's wondrous beauty paled in comparison to what the light revealed, to what it promised and what I knew it held.
Fixated, I continued to climb, straining my sails to grab more air that just wasn't there, to pull me closer to the silent voice of destiny that filled my mind with its song and my chest with its warmth even as my scales rapidly cooled as I raised myself higher and higher.
I yearned, I lusted after this light. Every fiber of my being longed for it to encompass me, to feel its caress and be consumed by it, to forever float in its seas devoid of darkness, cold, and loneliness. Slower and slower my ascent became, even as my wings beat fast and frantic, desperate for substance to fill their spread and push me higher. Claws worked to propel me upwards, searching for ground that was thousands of feet below.
I reached forth a single talon, towards what I knew was my destiny. I could feel my entire being shiver and scream with regret as the air rushed by. I plummeted earthward, my breath escaping in a cloud of condensed moisture, a silent cry for my loss, my failure.
Dutifully, I folded my wings. I knew when I was beaten. I watched the field of stars above as the wind whistled past my ears, tumbling backwards through the emptiness. The light faded, and was gone.
Not a single night has passed since that I haven't searched the skies for the same light, gone flying down the same path to feel for its call, or mourned its absence. But I am not discouraged, for I know the light will return. To take me back. To call me home.
And when it does, I will be ready. I will not fail again.