The Salmon of Doubt

The Way of the Nostril was probably the single smartest thing that Dave had ever thought of. Even he, to whom most things that most people would think were pretty smart were pretty dumb, thought it was pretty smart. It was the single reason that all of this was here, and it had become the single thing that made Dave hum old Carpenters tunes most, except maybe the lawyers. The sun was now gleaming brilliantly over all of DaveLand. It was pretty neat, Dave had to admit, but he also had to admit that he had kind of liked DaveLand when it was just his own funny stupid place to come to because only he was smart enough to get there. But one thing had led to another, and now all this. Here he was, only twenty-five and already beginning to feel like he was almost thirty. Well, screw all that. Today he was going to have some fun. He picked up the large canvas bag and slung it back over his shoulders. Sam would have a fit. The lawyers would go nuts. Good. He turned and climbed farther on up the hill. The was called Top of the World, and was named after the tune by the Carpenters. One of the great things about having your own world was that you could just go ahead and like the Carpenters on it.

The hill got pretty rocky and craggy higher up, and Dave had to do a bit of rock-scrambling to get to where he was going.

Within about twenty minutes he was pretty hot and a sweaty, but he’d made it to the top, or at least the last significant flat bit, a solid slab of deeply rutted rock on which he sat, and dumped the bag. He gathered his breath for a few moments and then started to unpack it. He pulled out aluminium struts, he pulled out orange strings, he pulled out little purple sheets of Kevlar. After about ten minutes of assembly the thing was ready. A large, gossamer-winged insect of a contraption. The scraps Kevlar strung between the struts of the frame were surprisingly small and oddly shaped. Dave had worked out that most of the cloth used in conventional hang gliders was redundant, and had got rid of it.

He examined the assembled frame systematically and satisfied himself that it was all as it should be, that it was Daveworthy.

He looked out nervously, but only just for a moment. He was going to do it anyway, so it was dumb to be nervous. Carefully picking up the hang glider, he carried it out to the edge of the rock, till he was standing on a ledge looking out over the whole extent of DaveLand. He noticed with satisfaction that although his glider looked like nothing more than a kind of drying frame for silk bikinis, it was very stiff and he had to pull it forcefully through the air to move it.

From here to Dave’s Place was about a mile horizontally and a couple of hundred feet vertically. He could just see, glinting in the sun, his large blue swimming pool, neatly secluded within the Japanese garden on the top of Dave’s Hill. The distance and the direction of the sun made details a little difficult, but he was confident that Sam would be waiting for him there beside the pool. He reckoned he could drop himself pretty neatly into that. He glanced at his watch. It was just after eight o’clock, and he’d scheduled the meeting for eight. Sam would be there.

He checked the wind direction, stepped into a lightweight harness belt, tightened it, clipped the belt to the glider, passed his hands through two loops, gripped the main struts, and he was ready.

All he had to do now was throw himself off into space.

Wow. Okay. Go.

No fuss, no dumb stuff. With a light heart he threw himself out forward, and sailed into empty space.

The air supported him immediately, with a little rough buffeting. He braced himself against the frame, then tried to relax a little, then relaxed a little more, trying to find a good balance that was easy but responsive.

He got it. He was out there. He was flying. He was just some kind of a bird.

Hey, this was good. The empty air was kind of a shock, but a good shock, like a swimming pool in the morning. And the air wasn’t empty. It was like falling into enormous invisible pillows, with fingers that came out and tugged and pulled at you, ruffling your hair, rattling your T-shirt. As his brain got to grips with the huge openness around him, he felt like a little toy hanging from the end of an immense mobile slowly turn over Dave World. He was turning in a big, easy arc, a little bit to the right and then, in response to a small shift in his weight, a little bit to the left, but still, it seemed, moving as an arc within an arc, a wheel within a wheel. The world, his world turned slowly around beneath him, green, rich, lush and vivid.