Flying Things

It was made of broomsticks and rags and old, old wires, but—it flew!  YES, it flew!  Only for a moment, that is so, but it flew!! Flying Thing #1 did fly and young Tommy Malloy was ecstatic.  It fell and crashed to the ground and broke into a hundred pieces; but that didn’t matter, because it HAD flown, and that meant that the possibility had become an actuality even if it was only for a moment.  Tommy danced about the wreckage of his Flying Thing #1. which was in pieces and scattered about in the field.

            Tommy then set out to build Flying Thing #2.  He poured a great deal of time, money and enthusiasm into this project. At night he dreamed of this marvelous machine in flight—and he saw himself in all the papers: “Tommy Malloy creates Flying Thing!”

            When he finished it, he looked at it and thought it was a thing of great beauty.  He started it up.  It wobbled and ran about the field.  It sputtered and strained and popped, but it wouldn’t take to the air.  He adjusted a few things, refueled it, primed it, turned it toward the wind and started it up again; and again it wobbled and sputtered and strained and popped.  Then after many tries, Flying Thing #2 hissed, screamed, choked and died never having, left the ground.

            Did I mention that Tommy was a very religious person?  When he was crestfallen for the failure of Flying Thing #2, he blamed himself for his failure—Not that he was wrong to build Flying Things, no, NO; he felt certain that God had given him a great gift to build such marvelous contraptions as the world had not seen!  No, not that, his error was his arrogance, ego and pride—his heart was not right, he decided, and that led him to dismantle Flying Thing #2 because, as he said to himself over and over again, “God has shut me down! And there is nothing I can do about it.”  He believed that he would have to purify his heart, and when his heart was right, God would call him, in the right time and place, to build Flying Things.

            And so Tommy became even more religious and spent his life trying to purify his heart so that when God called him to build his Flying Things, he would do so successfully and with purity of heart!  He married dutifully, but lovelessly, raised his children according to the will of God, worked hard at a job that he didn’t care for, with a boss that over-tasked him and paid him enough to keep him barely above poverty—for which he gave thanks to God in all things.  And he continued to spend years of devotion to God and to his church. 

Time passed by and Tommy was getting older and older.  Once in a while he thought about his Flying Things—even toyed with an idea for building Flying Thing #3—a little less weight here, lighter materials there, a different angle--but no, he would think, God had shut him down for his sinful pride and his many imperfections.

In time, Tommy died never having built his Flying Things.  He came before Almighty God.  It wasn’t quite like he imagined.  God was in a bar and looked like he would be more comfortable among bikers than preachers.  He was smoking a cigar and drinking shots of bourbon.  The piano player was playing “Stairway to Heaven” on a honky-tonk piano in the background while God poured a shot of bourbon into to Tommy’s glass.  Tommy, being religious, refused to drink, so God, being God and all, gave it to him straight:  “Tommy,” he said, scratching his whiskers, “I gave you a gift!  Son, you could’ve built the most amazing flying things to the joy of everyone, IF ONLY YOU HADN’T BEEN SO DAMN RELIGIUOS!!!