The flight of the eagle was wondrous. She wheeled, dipped and came about into a right turn. The golden sun glistened ahead, and she flew toward it. Then, without warning, her heart exploded; her time had come. She fell swiftly to the earth, and splattered unnoticed by a boy on the other side of the deserted street. Deserted? No. It was teeming with life, but the young man was all the dying eagle could see. In a flash, the eagle’s fate was decided; her spirit left her body, entering quietly the flesh an unborn foetus in a nearby hospital. The next six months were spent in growth and feeding, but for the youth in the street, his months were spent being lectured for poor marks in school.
His life was a sad one, spent as a pale, slender intellectual named Arthur in a largely crime-filled school. His poor marks did not bespeak his intellect; he was, at any time of day, to be found daydreaming of a lover he had waited for since childhood. Thus he never concentrated on the work and found comfort in the fact that he was treated quite well by his dangerous friends. Their grounds for familiarity rested on the notion that he was equally unintelligent but less prone to violence. The joke of it was a bond formed over the magnetism of instinctive intellect, despite them all believing in their own stupidity due to bad grades.
Meanwhile, the child in the hospital was born, her parents returning proudly to a modest apartment directly across the street Arthur’s parental home. They came in to fawn over Katherine, their newly named egret, and showed her to Arthur. Her eyes glowed when she saw him, and the faintest of smiles crossed her face. Her parents commented on how early she seemed aware of her surroundings. Arthur alone realised she was staring at him, and taken aback he left the room.
Time passed and Arthur rarely saw baby Katherine. Soon enough his grades improved and he found in himself an uncanny ability for painting. Within a few short years he was selected as one of a few gifted students in the country to travel to Nice, France, and live with Valerie, a famous French artist.
While Arthur adventured abroad, Katherine grew up and went to school, and was rewarded with the knowledge of her own intelligence, excelling at math while falling down in other subjects. It was not until her senior year that she developed similar skills in the fields of chemistry and physics. Within a short time she had won a number of scholarships, and chose a college that dealt in aeronautics – the Military Air Academy. Yet even with her love of math and the workings of the universal sky, Katherine dreamed in the depths of her soul for a deep and strange man who could spirit her way, in anything other than an aeroplane.
Their separate lives continued as Arthur lived and worked with the Bohemian crowd in Paris for several years, sampling the finer things in life. Ever an optimistic dreamer, he fancied himself the owner of an antique zeppelin, and before much more time had passed his benefactor Valerie passed away, leaving him a small fortune. It wasn’t long before a simple pipedream mixed with too much money became an oddly romantic reality.
Meanwhile after years of intense training, Katherine gained her stripes and control of a high velocity jet. On her first day flying out alone, her luck went awry. She was caught in a storm and forced to fly for many miles without radar and a dead, static-filled radio. Her trajectory had taken her so far from home that when the unfamiliar coast of France came into view she was stunned. Suddenly her jet was struck by lightning, forcing her to eject into the storm. At that very moment, Arthur was dallying over France, peering lazily at the countryside below.
Her parachute opened.
Full marks to those who guessed she landed on Arthur’s Zeppelin; those people are true romantics. The facts, however, were sadly different. Instead, she was hit by the nose of the Zeppelin as it passed through the storm, and knocked unconscious. Only her parachute saved her from certain death, although it would have suffocated her when she landed if a farmer living in that remote region had not cut her free, and dragged her to the safety of his cottage.
Katherine spent the next three years in a coma, lying on a straw mattress made for her by the poor but hospitable farmer who had saved her. When at last she awoke, she noted that she had never seen him before, but he was a remarkably handsome man. In fact, he may have been the most confoundingly attractive specimen she had ever seen. Over a further two years, he taught her all he knew, during which time she married him. She learned French, and all about the surrounding countryside, a far cry from her aeronautics training. Katherine was content.
Then on Arthur’s thirty-seventh birthday, he and his Zeppelin caused Katherine more calamity, crashing headlong into the centre of the farm. Katherine’s husband rescued the dying man from the wreckage, and returned him to their house. For thirteen weeks, Katherine tried to nurse Arthur back to health, a strange, bemused attraction blooming in her heart of hearts. She was certain she and Arthur had met before, and even more certain she would be the one to save his life. Sadly, one day when he was looking particularly healthy, Arthur’s heart constricted and he died. Her husband died two weeks later attempting to save a flock of lambs. Katherine’s heart broke, and she took her own life.
Yet it was not the end. All three were reborn, the wheel of birth and death spinning and spinning again. Renamed once more, many miles apart, this time their given names were Ben, Sarah, and Jason. Nobody could recall who was who by this point, for new lives were afoot, with new adventures to be had by all.
Around the age of thirteen, Ben discovered Sarah in the schoolyard, and for a time they dated, happily dancing the dance of puppy love. The relationship was nice, but they were only children, as they told each other at the time. They ended as friends. A few months later, Jason also found Sarah. They lived together for a little while, he paying for her existence, she acting the brat; not long after that, they too ended as friends. It seemed to Jason that Sarah was a strange and shallow person, hiding her true self behind a canvas. She was an artist after all, living her somewhat solitary existence in a troubled state if occupied with anything other than her paints. So after a time, Jason was left alone.
He lived for some years with a restlessness growing in his belly, a pain gnawing at his mind that refused to let go. He took to anything that could ground his mind and give him some measure of peace, drawing, pottery, accounting, shooting, it didn’t matter. Nothing appeared to help. It was as if he was fated to live out his days knowing there was something incredibly important waiting around the corner of his life, but never a hint at what it might be.
Years passed before Sarah walked back into his life as suddenly as she had left, begging for money and a place to stay. She would leave as soon as she found another job, she promised. He was the only one she could go to, Ben had died in a car accident and no one else cared for her. Jason laughed; shallow Sarah would never change. By all rights he ought to kick her out, he knew she was likely the root of his inner anguish, running out on him like that all those years ago.
Without warning Jason was overcome with the strangest feeling, as if struck by a vision of Biblical proportions. He looked at Sarah, his one-time love, and in place of some raven haired beauty stood a flaxen-haired boy. In that image stood the soul of adoration, and Jason was almost sure his heart was about to explode. The vision left him but the rapturous feeling remained. Jason begged Sarah to forgive him, not for now but for then, for long ago, for everything. He begged for love and marriage, while bemused and suddenly adored, Sarah accepted.
Somewhere high in the sky, an eagle named Ben circled the couple, the sun warming his feathers. He was confused, and his heart was racing.