In my dreams, I soar. In my dreams, my wings spread out majestically and catch the slightest current and all I have to do to reshape it into a pirouette is imagine. In my dreams the sun sits above me, small and bright like a tangerine. In my dreams the clouds stretch out below me and fold over each other like water. Then I wake up and my wings are cramped and tingling from lying on them funny.

I groan and wipe at the corner of my mouth, then slide out of bed. I snap the covers, sending a few feathers into the air.

As I dress, Delia's already in the kitchen making breakfast. She doesn't hear me. With these wings I fill the doorway as I watch her. She's cutting peppers for an omelet, her thin hands moving, her narrow shoulders getting into it. She's standing on her tip-toes, trying to get leverage. She's so slight that it seems as though everything is dragging on her, like a bird in the wind.

She turns and smiles, and there's the light I was needing to start my day. "When did you get up?"

"Just now."

She opens the refrigerator door and disappears from sight. I watch her arm curled around the handle like a snake on Moses' staff.

I pull my wings in and duck under the doorway. "I was thinking about leaving work early tonight and maybe taking you to that restaurant you like."

"Can't." She pops her head over the top of the fridge door. "I'm going to see my mother this afternoon and staying for the weekend, remember?"

I do that thing with the corner of my mouth, and she sighs and cups my face. "Bobby. It bothers me that you never go out and have some fun without me anymore."

"It bothers me too, and I know you want things to be the same as they were back home, but things are just really different here. We've lived here for two years and I still don't have any friends to go out with." I grab an orange off the counter and start peeling it. It's just over-ripe and the juice starts trickling down my arm.

"That's my point. You need to find some."

"You'd think that in here, of all places, people would be used to the diversity, but everyone treats me like a paraiah. It's these wings. I don't know what it is about them that makes people think that I'm such a freak. You remember Jeff, right?"

"The one with eye-stalks?"

"The one with eye-stalks. Oddly enough, he's got plenty of friends."

"That's because of what he does at parties. Maybe you just aren't applying yourself."

"Applying myself to use my eyeballs to hold my drink?"

"No, applying yourself to the work that is showing other people the real you." She slips her arms around me and squeezes.

"I don't think applying myself is part of the problem." She looks up at me like I'm going to say something else, which I am. She's developed a sense of an impending diatribe. "I think that the wings signify something deeper in the psyche than people are willing to admit. People look at me and they see their concept of holy and eternal anger e.g. 'The Angel of Death' personified. Plenty of people have mutations, but mine is different. It's not as if it's something terrible aesthetically speaking, because I don't believe that my physical appearance is terrible to behold, per se--"

"It's not."

"Thank you--But you cannot deny that psychologically or theologically I am terrible to behold. People see others as mere genetic abberations or novelties, whereas they see me as something that I am not. I am a symbol of a) their impending glory, b) impending wrath, or c) an establishment that they are rebelling against."

She blinks a couple times, completely deadpan. "I think it's because you're no fun at parties."

I look at her for a second, then laugh. I reach for my coat, the one Delia specially modified to accommodate my wings, and give her a peck on the forehead. "Have a good time."

"You're leaving?"

"I have to get there early today to make up some lost hours from last week that I forgot about." I smile an I love you and head out the door, leaving her looking for all the world like an army wife.

Walking to the plant, I keep my eyes distant, as though I'm looking at a bird somewhere off above a mountain range. It's cold, and there's a slight wind blowing the dusty snow around in the street. My wings spread out of their own accord, trying to catch more air, trying to hold that one gust that would lift me up into the sky. I fight to keep them close to my body so people don't stare. I cut across an empty parking lot and pick up the pace. It's far too cold to be taking my time.

- - - - -

At work when I boot up my console, a note flashes across the screen from Nelson politely requesting my immediate presence in his office. I doff my helmet, stick my hands in my pockets, and go upstairs. I knock politely and when he yells to come in, I try not to fill out his tiny office. Nelson tells me to close the door.

"What is this company in the business of doing, Robert." He phrases it like a statement.

"Making rockets."

He stares at me sternly and doesn't say a word. I clear my throat. "The mission of Jackson & Midland Rocket Co. is to produce the finest grade rockets for use by the general public." I leave out the catch-phrase We Build The Rockets Little Boys' Dreams Are Made Of that's on the poster I was reading from. It has a cartoon of an overidealized blonde-haired boy giving the thumbs-up while stradling a live rocket. The kid has a glass bubble around his head and the rocket is sporting a smiley-face. The poster is taped up there, and the corners are all curled.

"And what keeps this company afloat in order to make said rockets?"

"The Undying Quality of Workmanship Provided by Skilled Labourers, Dedicated To Affordable Space Travel For The Mid- To Upper-Class." I read off the plaque beside the poster.

"Have a seat, son." Nelson neurotically buttons and unbuttons his cream-colored blazer. Once again I try to figure out how to sit in the high-backed chairs without cramping my wings, but like always, I end up fidgeting, standing up, spreading my wings a little wider so they fall outside the arm-rests. Nelson sits there staring at me. I try to sit still and he takes this as a sign that he can launch back into his tirade.

"I've been hearing from several unnamed co-workers that you've been slightly, em, behind in the way of meeting the suggested minimum production quotas." He smiles for no reason. "Son, everyone has a job to do, and if even one of us falls behind, I take notice. Now, granted, there are family members amongst us that have certain disabilities, though I never liked that word. I like to think of them more of capabilities. But getting back to the point. See, I pride myself as being a father-figure at this plant, and it pains me to see that a member of my family is not happy where they are. One of the things that sets this facility apart is our togetherness, the close-knit community that we all share with each other. We all have dreams, son. Everyone one of us in the factory down there"--he jabs a chunky finger at the window that looks out on the floor--"has a dream. And that dream is the reason why we are so good at what we do. And honestly, the thought that there is someone on that floor who has dreams that don't fit into his or her position here... well, son. That just makes me sad. So I guess what I'm asking is, what are your dreams, Robert?"

I sit there with a blank look on my face that usually passes for thoughtfulness. I want to say it's my dream to live in the mountains where I can catch the updrafts from the warmed fields in the valley below. It's my dream to watch the sunrise from above the clouds. It's my dream to drift through the early morning fog and somehow know where the trees are. To wake in the middle of the night and walk outside, knowing that each speck in the sky is a star and not the flaring exhaust of a little ship holding a rich little man. To go wherever I want with my shirt off and my wings outstretched and be able to feel the sun on them. To have to fight to stay on the ground because the breeze is constantly trying to lift me up. To have a house made of nothing but open windows.

I realize I've been sitting there a while and I haven't said anything. Nelson is slowly drilling into my skull with his eyes and then all I can think about is my darling Delia and just the wonderful thought of being around her. I swallow my dreams hard and say that I want to be the finest in my trade. He doesn't buy it, but there's nothing he can do except mutter a weak threat of my early retirement and send me back down to the floor.

I work for five hours then go outside for a breather. I rub my hands together fast, breathe into them, dance from foot to foot. I lean back against the wall and look straight up through the clouds of white smoke pouring out of the smoke-stacks, right out into sky, blue as a bruise, blue as God's iris, blue as my wife's prom dress in a memory that's seven years old and not nearly as stale as it should be. A silver fleck appears, catching the light. I watch it for a second or two and it disappears.

- - - - -

I take it slow when I cross the bridge, because this is the only spot I know of where there's an unobstructed view of the horizon. I stop halfway and just look. A pin-prick of light flashes right where the ground meets the sky, flickers like a candle as it rises slowly, then blends in with the other dim lights already up there. I watch them orbit each other, dancing around like fireflies.

I think of the points of light as thousands of suns, each burning alone somewhere in the blackness. I think of them as holes punched in black construction paper. I think of them as motes of dust floating in an empty room. I think of them as flecks of silver paint on the underside of a black dome that covers the city. I think of them as angels drifting through the atmosphere like fish in a lake. I try hard to forget that they're just burning ion-hydrogen cells being belched from the back-ends of rockets. I try not to wonder how many of those little pods floating around up there were welded together by me.

I ponder it all and steel myself.

I reach behind me and unfasten the pins holding my coat together, then shrug it off as I grab the girder and haul myself up. I'm breathing harder now as I'm building up the courage to do it--just jump off, stretch my wings, leave everything behind, drift out over the river, past the buildings, past the windows with people inside eating, smoking, reading magazines, watching movies for the hundredth time. I'll float out past the city, past the suburbs, past the highways and little farmhouses dotting the countryside, past the mouth of the river, past the little fishing boats bobbing in the harbor, past the breakwaters, over the ocean, vast and blank as the full moon that's just now pulling itself out of the water. I'll go out until there's nothing but stars above me and wind holding me up by my shoulders.

A barge passes under me, a man standing on the deck smoking. He stares back up at me, his features glowing orange from draughts on his cigarette. The man disappears under the bridge, then the barge, then the wake the barge left. The water moves like it's only an inch deep. I think of Delia. I think of her dippy theories about world hunger. I think of our dreams and late-night promises of future children in a quiet neighbourhood. I think of the smell of her hair when she gets out of the bath. I think of the way she watches me when I'm asleep.

Another flash of light climbs the sky like it's a shadowed wall, and I get down off the railing and walk down the middle of the street. My wings spread out, buoyant.

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