The wind whipped past him, pulling at his clothes as he plummeted further and further toward the blinking lights below. He lay on his back, suspended like a marionette and staring at the lonesome moon above. His glasses cast a dark tint on his perception, dimming the already black night. His black jumpsuit pulled upwards as if by seraphs demanding an audience.
      But Gravity was a demanding mistress. She clawed at him, grasping with invisible fingers as she forced him back towards her. He defied her once already when he took the first step onto the small white Cessna that lifted him towards the stars. Now that same plane was just another twinkling dot above him.
       He closed his eyes and let his head hang. His body fell in a spiral, unrestrained and uninhibited. Clouds dispersed as he fell through on his way back to life. His muscles relaxed. His heartbeat slowed. His breathing became shallow.
       She was pulling harder now. With stars both above and below him, he continued to accelerated.
       It was liberating in a sense. He was free, held down only by the realities of physics. The worries, the empathy, the animosity – he left them behind in the clouds above.
       His fingers wrapped around the rip chord by his chest. A single pull and it would all come to halt. He paused. A single pull and life would catch up once again. A single pull and his freedom would fall away.
        He loosened his grip.
        I’d rather not, he closed his eyes, I’m not going to let them clip my wings. Not again. 
       And so the silhouette continued its endless spiral downwards, vanishing into the night.