I’m flying through the air, as free as a bird! Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I know this isn’t real, yet the feelings seems natural, my motions fluid. I feel so light, so free, the world so tiny beneath me. But then my mind struggles against this fiction, and I feel myself falling, plummeting to the ground.

My stomach rises in my throat, my pleasure turns to panic. I flail around uselessly as the ground draws ever near. An instant before I hit the ground, I close my eyes tight fear.

I wake, breathing hard, my sheets in a tangle. The first rays of golden light flicker through the window. I draw back the curtains, breathing the fresh air. I spy an eagle, soaring high above the ground, searching for its prey.

And sometimes, only sometimes when time seems to stand still, I look out the window and wish that I could be as free as that eagle, as free as I had felt in my dreams.