The Bridge Across Forever
ONE She'll be here today. I looked down from the cockpit, down through the wind and propeller-blast, down through half a mile of autumn to my rented hayfield, to the sugar chip that was my FLY-$3-FLY sign tied to the open gate. Both sides of the road around the sign were jammed with cars. There must have been around sixty of them, and a crowd to match, come to see the flying. She could be there this moment, just arrived! I smiled at that. Could be! I throttled the engine to idle, pulled the nose of the fleet plane higher, let the wings stall. Then stomped full rudder, full left rudder, and jammed the control stick back. The green earth, harvest corn and soybeans, farms and meadows calm at noon, the bottom dropped out and they exploded in the whirling blur of an airshow tailspin of what would look from the ground like an old flying-machine suddenly burst out of control. The nose slammed down, the world spun into a color-streak tornado wrapping faster and faster around my goggles. How long have I been missing you, dear soulmate, I thought, dear wise mystical lovely lady? Today at last, coincidence will bring you to Russell, Iowa, take you by the hand, lead you to that field of alfalfa hay, down there. You'll walk to the edge of the crowd, not quite knowing why, curious to watch a page of history still alive, bright paints spinning in the air. The two-winger twisted down thuddering, kicking against me on the controls for a thousand feet, the tornado going steeper and tighter and louder every second.
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