Arthur Penwick had never wanted to fly. He’d always been quite content with things like walking, sitting, and watching science documentaries that gently implied that flying was for birds, billionaires, and bees who hadn’t yet been told they shouldn’t be able to.
But one Tuesday morning—those notorious catalysts of personal reinvention—Arthur had decided to take up flying because he’d briefly mistaken it for baking. In his defense, both begin with “B” when pronounced with enough caffeine, and both require precise timing to avoid disastrous consequences.
So there he was, clutching a clipboard full of acronyms, staring at a small airplane that looked like it had strong opinions about wind.
“Cessna 172,” Phil said, smacking the aircraft’s nosecone like a salesman pretending the car wasn’t full of raccoons. “Reliable, indestructible, and only occasionally possessed.”
Arthur blinked. “Possessed?”
Phil gave a smile that was either reassuring or the early onset of a stroke. “It’s aviation slang for ‘temperamental,’” he lied.
The first week of flight school was spent indoors, presumably to weed out the students who thought planes should be inflated. Arthur learned many vital concepts, such as:
- Lift: The mystical force that makes planes go up, usually just before something terrifying happens.
- Drag: The universe’s way of reminding pilots they are not wanted in the sky.
- Angle of Attack: Not a military term, but a fancy way of describing how to stab the air politely.
Arthur took notes feverishly, only to discover later he had accidentally transcribed half a meatloaf recipe into his aviation binder. He hoped it wasn’t important. It was.
Three weeks later, after a suspiciously brief series of lessons and a somewhat ambiguous “exam” that involved identifying clouds using interpretive dance, Arthur was told he was ready to solo.
“To what?” he asked.
“To fly. Alone.”
This did not comfort him. Arthur had never successfully operated a photocopier alone, let alone a flying fuel-powered physics experiment held together by hope and minor corrosion.
- But Phil was confident. “You’ve got this. Just remember what I taught you.”Arthur cast his mind back. What Phil had mostly taught him was how to eat burritos without using your hands while in a shallow dive.
Nonetheless, Arthur found himself alone in the cockpit, the engine idling like an impatient badger. He followed the checklist carefully, which included such essential steps as: - Fuel quantity: Some.
- Flaps: Present.
- Existential dread: Max.
He taxied to the runway, heart thumping like a mariachi band trapped in a tumble dryer. He took a deep breath, added full power, and began to roll forward.
And then—somehow, incredibly—he was in the air.
The world tilted away, the sky opened up, and gravity momentarily checked its watch and wandered off for a coffee.
Arthur was flying.
Not just flying—piloting. He was commanding a machine through the sky with the authority of a man who had absolutely no business doing so.
It was beautiful, terrifying, and weirdly damp. (He would later discover the left air vent had been duct-taped shut using a tortilla.)
At 1,500 feet, Arthur saw a goose. The goose saw him. The goose did not blink.
In the seconds that followed, Arthur performed an evasive maneuver known as a “startled shriek and hard right rudder,” which was not officially in the FAA handbook but probably should be.
The goose, unfazed, drifted serenely away, leaving behind a trail of feathered judgment.
Arthur recovered, barely. He glanced at the altimeter, which now read “whoa there” and returned to straight and level flight with the rigid tension of someone balancing a priceless vase on a unicycle.
As he lined up to land, Arthur remembered Phil’s final words: “Landing is easy. Just aim for the Earth and try not to be remembered for it.”
The plane sank toward the ground like a suspicious soufflé. Arthur flared too early, bounced once, twice, and then settled—more or less—onto the runway in what could generously be described as “survivable.”
He rolled to a stop. Silence.
Phil jogged up to the cockpit, beaming. “Perfect!” he said. “Textbook!”
“Which textbook?” Arthur croaked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Phil said. “Nobody reads them.”
Later that night, Arthur sat under a sky now full of stars instead of anxiety. He thought about how absurd it all was—that humans could fly, that he had flown, and that the goose now probably had a better story to tell at parties.
He still didn’t understand airspeed, or why the compass kept spinning when he coughed, but he had learned something important.
Sometimes, the best way to rise above it all is to point the nose up and trust that the ground will take the hint.
And maybe—just maybe—that’s what flying is all about.
