The people gratefully received his message and they moved forward quickly, chastising themselves for having forgotten that disobedience was the mantra of this man. They came to a clearing, and the cliff at the mountain’s peak was visible. The man was up there, sitting on the ground and scribbling something in the dirt with his finger. He saw his disciples and bellowed something that meant, “It’s about time, idiots.” He then started moving quickly, very quickly, as if he were rebelling against the air. To the people down below, it looked as if he were training for a very big confrontation.

“That’s it! Drag Him out of hiding!” a middle-aged man said.

“Show Him who’s boss!” a little blonde girl said.

“It’s time for an accounting! The day has come for a reckoning!” an elderly woman shouted.

“Just wish it didn’t come to this,” the young boy who resembled the Officer said as he looked up from tying some large man’s shoe laces together.

The weight of the sky above him and that of the space below him had achieved an equilibrium, and he hovered there above the crowd.

The man had stopped moving quickly and was now walking backwards. The people below could no longer see him, and many wondered — to themselves — if he had lost heart. And then he was visible again, running toward the end of the cliff as fast as any man had ever moved his two legs. There were scattered murmurs wondering if he would do it, if he could do it, if he would really attempt what every man, woman, and child has dreamed about since the tragic discovery of gravity. People were clapping, cheering, crying with excitement, anticipating the moment when God would be proved a liar and man would fly. And then the man’s feet left the ground and he dove naked off the cliff. The crowd was silent.

He was falling slower than any man should. He looked down at the air molecules parting to let him pass, and then he looked up to the mass of molecules pushing him downward and denied their existence. The weight of the heavens lessened as he laughed heartily and spat at the sun. He was now moving very slowly toward the earth and it looked as if he were gliding on a lucky wave of wind. And then he stopped. The weight of the sky above him and that of the space below him had achieved an equilibrium, and he hovered there above the crowd. The man was mumbling something, dissolving his ties to the earth and to man, and preparing his ascent to meet his Maker. Perhaps he was formulating the questions he would ask Him, or loosely composing an indictment for negligence. Perhaps he was wondering if he should do anything at all.

Then he was moving upward, and all the world below him was erupting into happiness, with one exception. Looking down and bidding the world one final farewell, the man noticed one small group of people who were not clapping and screaming and joining in the general merriment. It was his deserted wife, and the beautiful family he had forsaken. The lower halves of their faces were red, worn with tears that had by now dried up; they had nothing left to give and so simply watched silently with a look of pure, desperate bewilderment that would drive any madman sane. He only looked at them for an instant, but that was all it took. By the time he had turned back and was looking up at his destination in the heavens, the sun was shrinking and he was falling. Before his fall could reverse the momentum of the people’s glee, he had landed on the ground with a sickening crash. And all were silent once more, except for a bit of laughter somewhere in the distance.

The people formed a reverent circle around his broken body. A priest started to say a prayer but then thought better of it. They all stood there without speaking for a while, but soon people in the back began to drift away. The former disciples were all filing out now, and some had begun to discuss the day’s business, how they had to get back to the office and give such-and-such files to Mr. Such-and-such by the day’s end, or how they had to get to the grocery store to prepare a nice steak dinner for the visiting in-laws, or how they had to drop their kids back off at day care, and all the like, but there would be days in the future on which these same people, perhaps gathered at a Thanksgiving dinner, or speaking to a stranger on a train, or to their grandchildren from their nursing home beds, would tell this man’s story and the crazy things that he did, and of course, no one would believe them, and then they would laugh and wonder and return to their day-to-day trifles, never knowing that — after everyone had left that day — the dead man was smiling because, for better or worse, he finally knew the big secret.