Flight is freedom, freedom from time and space. As in two of his other books, Illusions: The Tale of a Reluctant Messiah and Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach uses flight maturely and appropriately as a chance to learn without the constraints of earth, or reality. As the plane he and his wife are flying in disappears from radar and reality, they have the chance to see the infinite possibilities of their lives: past, present, and future. They learn eventually that they are a part of each other, and that everyone is ONE. The readers are the writer, heroes are murderers, and you and I are interchangeable pronouns. It is a complexly simple and beautiful idea. However, unlike two of the author's other stories of individuals who are socially shunned, rebel teacher-types, this one stresses the submission of the individual to the whole; definitely not written for the fiercely independent individuals who may be expecting encouragement rather than calmness from the book. The reason for only a four-star rating is not indebted to any socially radical leanings, but is for a contradiction from this usually mentally agile author. Toward the end of the story, our humble narrator stumbles a bit by mentioning a higher power. Was getting past this dependence not the point, or has the grand and gaping logic of philosophy circled and returned, recycled, to a dependence on something other than ouselves? Do I hear the Pageites rattling somewhere in one of their name-induced wars? The eloquence and energy of the story, though, fade any inconsistency to a mere blur on the horizon. It is an honorable tribute to those moments of tearful and laughing love for the world, the universe, humanity, and for the ecstasy of existence.