Icarus Falling

They don’t tell you what Icarus saw as he fell from the sky. 

            But I just visited him in the underworld, and I asked him about it. 

He said the view from above the clouds was magical. The horizon stretched out forever. The sun danced on his skin. The air tasted sweet, he said. The mountains sang. The wind held him up. 

     Then came the fall. 

He knew he was going to die. He knew he had flown too high. So he took a breath and closed his eyes. 

      It wasn’t his whole life that flashed, it was only his time with her,

his love. 

     He saw the two of them laying in the park together reading books. 

He saw them sharing music together. 

    He saw her smile. He heard her laugh. He felt her lips on his. 

He saw them watching fireworks together after a ball game.

    He saw them surrounded by butterflies, as they chased a waterfall. 

He saw them soaking in a hot spring. 

    He saw her get on a plane. 

He saw her on her birthday.

    He watched them paint together. Her paintings were good, his were shit. 

He saw them in front of a stage, live music blasting into their souls. 

    He saw her dog—the dog that hates men—but for some reason, her dog loved him. 

He saw her childhood, the one he only saw in his dreams. 

    He heard her speak. 

He remembered when he baked her a pie. 

    He remembered when they got high on thanksgiving while watching all the Lord Of The Rings movies together. He recalled how many cookies she ate that day.

     He remembered how she felt in his arms when he hugged her.

Everything. He saw every second he had with her. 

And before he hit the ground, he smiled. 

“Is love real? I’ve never felt it before. How do you know love is real?” he asked her a few minutes after meeting her years ago. 

She smiled sweetly at him and said, “Of course love is real.”

“How do you know, though?”

She wrapped her arm around his and said, “You are my proof.”

     Icarus spent days talking about her to me. The guy had a lot of time to kill, but I didn’t. I still had a life to live. 

“Hey, man, I have to get going before they find out I am down here,” I said to him as I got up to leave. 

“Wait! Do you have someone you love?” he asked me desperately. 

“Yeah,” I said. “I do. But, she’s with Hephaestus . . .”

      “You can’t give up on love, my friend.”

“But what if she is the sun to me?”

    His smile grew bigger. 

“Then fly to her.”

    “What about the fall?”

“It’s worth it in the end.”

CH 3/19/26