To Dream of the Sun

The old man sighed, and pushed aside the scrolls which cluttered the table’s surface. Requests for consultations- demands for his presence- bills and fees- all more pointless than the breeze from his window. He turned, and let the afternoon sun play across his tired features. For a moment, his face relaxed, and he was simply smelling the sea air, and lis tening to the sound of the waves- and the gulls. His eyes opened, and he watched the birds dance upon the airstream. From old habit, his mind analyzed the wind’s speed and direction, the way the gulls altered their flight path with the slightest tilt of t heir wings… he turned away. ‘Let the King of Knossos thunder his demands to the breeze,’ he thought, as he walked downstairs.
Then he sat, and watched the housekeeper work. Gnawed on a knuckle. Thought about his olive trees. Shifted his position, and did so again. Finally, with a sigh, he got to his feet, and walked behind the house, to the small building overlooking the sea. Dark, until his eyes adjusted. The roof admitted the sun’s light in a beam on the object in the center of the room, as he had designed it to. The old man sighed, and stared at the white cloth for a moment, idly noting the slight alteration in its shape since his last visit. 'That will be the wax,’ he thought to himself. ‘The heat- have to build a new room. Underground.’ Finally, with a sigh, he reached for the cloth.
The damage was not as bad as he’d feared: a slight sagging, nothing more; a few stray feathers lay on the ground, but those could be easily replaced. The wings’ clever framework was unwarped; he could always re move the wax and recast it, if he wished. He sighed to himself; not all mistakes were so easily fixed… his eyes glanced to the corner. They lay there in the dark, as they had since he’d had them recovered. Shattered beyond repair, the wax melted and flowed, the feathers singed. Why had he had them recovered? They were useless now. A memory. Unbidden, his mind turned back to that last moment- his son so proud against the sky. Higher, and higher, until he was a black dot against the heavens- so high he coul d barely hear the scream at first. Then, he was closer again- the dot grew larger. Larger. That one frozen instant, where his son’s eyes met his, and he saw terror and exultation mixed. The temptation to unfasten his own wings, or simply stop flapping. Th e glide to the beach, numbly calm as he instructed the people waiting for him to ready to a boat. The trip home, with people attempting to console him, as though their babble could drown out the memory of… enough.
For the thousandth time, he imagined strapping his own wings on, and following his son in his ascent to the heavens… no. He was an old man now, muscles sagging and weak. It was past his time to challenge the gods- he could merely bow his head, and accede to their decisions. Time to return to his bed, and dream of the sun.