The Dare

There is sun and wind on this day. Each thing, both the sun and the wind help to make the characteristics of the day, like varying degrees of behaviors in a person make them unique.  And so this sun; is it harsh? Well, yes. It's an autumn sun, and though it might not be considered in the zeitgeist as worthy of note, like the celebrity summer sun, it is powerful. This sun is hitting the little Cessna as if it was trying to keep it on the ground. It's beaming down from its very own astronomical unit away, and covering every single visible top-side piece of the airplane, leaving shadow underneath.  Even as the plane moves slowly along the runway, the sun stays with it. The wind too.  Though useless in blowing the sun off its mark, or piling it up on the far wing (starboard, as it is now heading south), this wind is felt fully coming in low and across as if to move the plane away along the ground.  It is as if the plane is under attack.  It reaches a cross-runway and heads west with the wind on its tail for now.  You might think it's trying to get away from the wind. You might think it was giving up, but it isn't.  It reaches the west end of the east/west runway and slows.  The tail comes up a bit but recovers to settle.  The sun is still all over it.  The rotor blade on the front of the plane is turning fast, pulling, but the brakes, wing flaps, and ailerons and the rudder on the back of the plane, in their own way, claw at the air to keep all hell from breaking loose.  Left brake engaged and the plane turns around completely, facing directly into the wind.  The sun is still there, though its angle has moved the shadow from the back to the front of the plane now, but the top is still covered in sun.  It glints in various points as if there is too much of it and it's trying to bounce back up into the sky, or drip over the edge.  The wind is full-on. No hesitation. Like the kid at recess who throws your hat up on top of the monkey bars and dares you to try and get it. Brakes set. Flaps up 10 degrees. Throttle up. Up. And release brakes.  The rotor is spinning so fast that it is impossible to define the individual blades.  The sound is like some yawling creature trying to move between worlds and, frankly, that's just what's happening. This little plane, this Cessna is cheating the wind, actually using its  assumptive arrogance to get it up off the ground, the rotor pulling it through.  And it this wasn't enough, there is gravity to contend with now.  Gravity, and the battle of that shiny little plane to move through.

Accepting the dare; that's all it is. That's all any of this is.