Flying

                I know I’m always going on and on about traveling to other worlds and meeting other species, but you wouldn’t believe this wonderful technological device that I uh, found on one of my trips in the portal system.  This alien device has several features to it.  There’s invisibility, a protective shield (so far, I’ve tested it with hammers and knives and nothing seems to penetrate it), a translation feature (how cool is that?  I can talk to aliens!), and some others.  I’ll let you read about my adventures with these other features in my official report to David Englund in his book, Upsetting the Tides.  Today I want to tell you about my favorite feature, flying.  Yes, this device actually allows me to fly!  It works both here and on other worlds.

  You might think it’s all fun and games, but, well, I guess I do too.  My point is, there are issues with trying to fly.  You have to deal with things like sudden down drafts, all sorts of types of birds, and my biggest fear, being seen by someone.  You would think it’s all wide open space up there once you get past the trees and power lines.  I learned the hard way that this isn’t quite the case.  Like the time when I went out flying at night and didn’t pay attention to where I was or which direction flights were coming into town from.  As you know, about once every two or three weeks, the wind patterns force flights to come in from the northwest.  Anyway, without trying, I drifted pretty high over the city and I almost got hit by a large plane coming into town.  I panicked and dove toward the ground to get out of the way, only that put me almost directly in its jet wash.  That turned out to be a miserable experience as I spiraled toward the ground for awhile.  Thankfully, I was able to recover into level flight again.  Needless to say, I won’t be making that mistake again and there’s really no reason to include that episode in the reports. 

It’s on other worlds that I can really cut loose.  But I have to be careful.  I’m learning that every planet doesn’t have the same gravity or wind patterns that we do here.  Sometimes it takes a little getting used to.  I have to tell you, most of the time it’s incredibly fun.  The phone device (I call it that because it opens up like a flip phone) enhances the entire experience of traveling to other worlds. 

            Clark