I always feel younger when I fly. It's as if the curse of the years is broken along with the bounds of gravity. I peek out the window for a brief moment and see the endless greens, yellows, and browns arranged in those unbelievably tidy little squares. Man's constant struggle to force the natural world to live by his rules.

When I'm down there I'm one of them. I pull and tug against the unwilling fabric of the universe, compelling my desires to become tangible. Urging them to come alive and by doing so drag me into the world of the living as well.

Up here it's a different, almost godlike feeling. I can truly see what fools we are and realize with total clarity that those neat little squares will fade. It takes but the merest blink of a godly eye before nature will take back her treasures and set about making them her own once again. Man has never fully learned this.

Adam and Eve were not cast from the garden as punishment for their sins. They were cast out for believing that could attain godlike understanding. The serpent promised wisdom and they took the bait. Who among us can say we would do otherwise?

My thoughts are interrupted momentarily by a flight attendant. Would I like something to drink? Why, yes, I believe I would.

She reminds me of a younger Abigail, she has the same gossamer spray of fine hairs on each cheek. Abby always cursed her luck regarding this trait and swore the day she turned 18 she was shaving herself from tip to toe. I, on the other hand, thought it a beautiful trait. Far more lady-like than my own inherited weakness of overly broad shoulders and hips.

I can remember lying next to Abby in our respective beds at the orphanage. Watching her young breast rise and fall with each angelic breath. Wishing ever so deeply that I were not female... wishing that I had something useful to do with these strange feelings. And falling in love with that flaxen dusting of the lightest hairs... and wondering (oh, the scandal!) if she had them on her belly, too.

My drink. Thank you, young lady. No, I don't require a pillow, thank you very much.

I wish I didn't have to take this cursed flight. Long life has many advantages, I assure you, but one of them is certainly not flying from city to city as your life-long friends drop like flies. Abby was a dear friend. A happy memory of an unhappy place. I will miss her greatly.

Another peek out the queer little window and I can see nothing, but endless clouds. Perhaps this is what heaven will be like, floating silently above the clouds, far above the Earth. If they allow old lesbians into heaven, that is. I really can't imagine otherwise... I didn't ask to be this way. It's as basic a trait as a person's height.

The attendant again, this time rousing me from a light nap. We're almost there, Ma'am, she says. Thank you, Miss, I reply as I gather my wits about me like a shawl against the cold winds of reality. The window shows little more than a streaked, gray sky as the rain slips past the tempered glass.

It seems that the sky itself weeps for her. Mourning the loss of its gossamer angel. Perhaps it does. She always was the popular one, you see. Always getting the attention of every boy in town. Always on dates or at parties while I stayed home and counted the hours until she would return. She always had such great stories of her adventures on nights such as this. I would lay across her bed in our foster parents big house with my chin resting on my hands watching as she let down her marvelous, blonde hair and brushed out the tangles as she spun her tales. It was as if the words themselves were caught in those golden tresses and only the brush could tease them out to fall onto my ears.

It was always little Margie wanting to be Abigail, or so they thought. I didn't want to be her I wanted to be with her. To bathe in her unearthly radiance and make some of her power my own.

Sadly, that day would never come. She went her way upon graduation and I went my own. We sent letters back and forth and, in later years, spoke occasionally on the telephone. All those years of telling and listening and she never knew my secret. Now she will never know. I will let you in on a secret, though. I never loved anyone as much or as deeply as I loved Abby with her fine little hairs on her cheeks.

As I prepare to leave I kiss the attendant lightly on the cheek as the tears course down my face. She is visibly puzzled by my actions, but, thankfully, she just smiles cheerfully and wishes me a good vacation in San Francisco. I return her gentle smile and set off to bury my only love.