Icarus could have lived beneath the cedars, his prodigious lungs and pectoralis majors lifting him up to where he could learn to cling to small branches, a graceful boy perhaps rejoining his half-forgotten mother across the hostile sea. He might learn the pleasure of juniper and serviceberries to fuel his tight frame, a greater wonder than flight, moving with the flock season by season, unmourned and unremembered in this brief happy life. His feathers and their upkeep would keep him occupied in useful labor far from the sucking waves, far from Samos but alive, and no land would be named in his memory. For if happiness is all, and unhappy legend is useless, and the tears of a horror-struck father can turn to a wistful acceptance, is this not what we all want? The lively brown shapes among the fruiting trees whistling as they go, the flash of bright color at wingtip glimpsed as the slim youth falls and rises again the way he had been taught, this was the intention.

[Richard Magahiz tries to live an ordered life in harmony with all things natural and created but one that follows unexpected paths. He’s spent much of his time wrangling computers as a day job but is now working on a way to center life around other things. His work has appeared at Star*Line, Dreams and Nightmares, Sein und Werden, Uppagus, Bewildering Stories, and Shoreline of Infinity. His website is at https://zeroatthebone.us]