Sandfeathers
A Pilot’s Journey Through Slow Sand and Flight
In the quiet weight of being stuck, all roads begin to open.
Between waking and sleep, the edges of reality blur—where knives can glow, droids can chatter like old friends, and alligators wear coveralls. Here, the rules bend, and a pilot finds himself stranded not by fate, but by the slow, sticky sands of doubt and longing. Yet in stillness lies escape, and even the deepest trap may open the widest horizons.
I discover tonight that I am a pilot, callsign Lovesick. I wear a bright orange flight suit adorned with assorted tchotchkes and buttons attached to my breast. From that collection of ephemera, a large glowing knife juts out. At first, people stare with concern, asking if I am hurt. I assure them I’m fine. This blade has become part of me—woven into my very fabric, my definition.
My craft, the X-wing, burns hard toward our waypoint. S-foils locked, ready for the attack run. I come in for a landing—at a grocery store!
My companion droid, T5-9D, points out we’re low on bananas and marshmallows. We could also use some lubricants for T5's comfort. The arid sands have created problematic chafing.
Vienna by Ultravox blares from my Walkman, so loud my ears bleed a sticky silver goo—not blood, but something glowing like fairy dust, sweet and thick, like jam. T5 insists it can get louder:
“Whirr-beep, click-click, whistl-bop, beep-beep, whirr!”
I tell T5 it’s plenty loud.
“Bipp, bipp, click-whistle.”
“Well, maybe I am too old,” I quip back.
We swoop low beneath strange clouds that twirl in wild DNA helices across a red sky writhing just above ragged mountaintops.
Deep in a valley, the ship settles beneath the heavy boughs of a massive willow in a bayou. The air hums with humidity and the scent of life. An alligator slips through the shallow water, eyes gleaming yellow.
Waddling onto the mossy shore, it stands erect, well over six feet tall, wearing lavender attendant’s coveralls. ‘Gresham’ is embroidered on a patch over its left breast pocket.
“Would you like a kiss?” it asks, voice seductive, low and wet.
“No, thank you.”
Instead, it offers a hug. The creature’s skin is not as coarse as I expected, but smooth as silk—cool and oddly stimulating, like balm to my weary chest. I weep quietly into its embrace.
“Bet you wish you’d accepted that kiss,” it murmurs coyly while tending the ship’s fuel needs.
“Sugar-free or sap?” she asks.
“I don’t care,” I answer, wiping wetness from my cheeks.
From the trunk of the ancient willow, a long vine snakes down, wrapping gently around the fuselage.
“It’ll be a minute,” Gresham tells me.
I settle on the back of a nearby hippo—Shiela—her broad body rising and falling with slow breaths. I sip warm tea from a cracked porcelain cup. Nearby, a grand piano rests half-submerged in mud, its keys worn but gleaming.
The piano speaks to me in a language foreign and wild, communicating through chords simple but indecipherable. A google bird perches on its ledge, whispering the piano thinks I have kind eyes and wants to play something for me.
“No, I need to go,” I say softly.
The piano’s chords twist into a plea: “You can’t. You’re stuck in the sand.”
I rise and return to the ship. It’s right. The ground has consumed the landing gear. The bottom of the ship is disappearing. The sand creeps higher, swallowing the fuselage inch by inch.
“Slow-sand,” Gresham says, nodding toward the tree. “Most people come down here but don’t stay. They forget the sign.”
I feel the weight of disappointment settle over me, heavy as the humid swamp air.
I ask the powerful Shiela to pull me free.
She strains and snorts, muscles bulging beneath her skin, but the slow sand holds fast. She falters, and I feel the sinking deepen.
Defeated, I step down.
Gresham motions for me to join her.
“Let me take you through the bayou,” she says. “There’s someone you need to meet.”
Opening her enormous mouth, I see the interior has transformed into a lush, red reading chair. I sit, cross legged and we slip into the still.
We glide silently through dark water, willow branches brushing our faces, fireflies flickering like distant stars.
At the heart of the bayou, we claw onto land and climb in a spiral up an ancient, moss-draped bald cypress.
On a cluster of branches laid with a clutter of sticks and foliage perches an eagle, its feathers boiling gold in the dappled light.
Gresham nudges me gently forward.
The eagle offers a single golden feather.
“Eat this,” it says, eyes sharp and ancient. “You will find it—liberating.”
I do.
The feather melts on my tongue, warmth spreading from my chest to my fingertips. It tastes of mandarin, plum, and clove—and a hint of jasmine. Spicy and delicious.
Suddenly, I am everywhere and nowhere. I blink and find myself back at the grocery store landing bay, then beneath the willow, then soaring above the bayou on wings I did not have moments ago.
Being stuck in the slow sand had not trapped me—it had opened every possibility.
No longer bound by the rules of physics and reality, I can go anywhere in and out of time.
I am no longer a pilot. I am become THE the pilot. The glowing knife is part of me still, but now I carry wings made of light and choice.
S-foils unlocked.
#dream #writing #xwing #pilot #alligator #essay #memoir #journal #osxs #100daystooffset #writing
WolfCast Home Page – Listen, follow, subscribe
Thank you for coming here and walking through the garden of my mind. No day is as brilliant in its moment as it is gilded in memory. Embrace your experience and relish gorgeous recollection.
Into every life a little light will shine. Thank you for being my luminance in whatever capacity you may. Shine on, you brilliant souls!
— Go back home and read MORE by Wolf Inwool
— Visit the archive
I welcome feedback at my inbox
