Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
Richard Bach
Language: English
Pages: 144
ISBN: 0099427869
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In the cloud-washed airspace between the cornfields of Illinois and blue infinity, a man puts his faith in the propeller of his biplane. For disillusioned writer and itinerant barnstormer Richard Bach, belief is as real as a full tank of gas and sparks firing in the cylinders ...until he meets Donald Shimoda - former mechanic and self-described messiah who can make wrenches fly and Richard's imagination soar...In Illusions, the unforgettable follow-up to his phenomenal New York Times bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach takes to the air to discover the ageless truths that give our souls wings: that people don't need airplanes to soar ...that even the darkest clouds have meaning once we lift ourselves above them ...and that messiahs can be found in the unlikeliest places - like hay fields, one-traffic-light midwestern towns, and most of all, deep within ourselves.
does, I guess you do have a problem." He jerked his head up and his eyes blazed as though I had hit him with the wrench. I thought all at once that I would not be wise to get this guy mad at me. A man fries quick, struck by lightning. Then he smiled that half-second smile. "You know what, Richard?" he said slowly. "You ... are ... rightl" He was quiet again, tranced, almost, by what I had said. Not noticing, I went on talking to him for hours about how we had met and what there was to learn, all
events of your life are there because you have drawn them there. l/\/hat you choose to do with them is up to you. Don't you get lonely, Don?" It was at the cafe in Ryerson, Ohio, that it occurred to me to ask him. "I'm surprised you'd ..." "Sh," I said. "I haven't finished my question. Don't you ever get just a little lonely?" "What you think as .. ." "Wait. All these people, we see them just a few minutes. Once in a while there's a face in the crowd, some lovely star- bright woman who
on clouds, and the chimney-smoke in the mornings, going right straight up in the calm and I could see ... Oh. I get your point. You're 163 going to say, 'You never felt that way about guitars, did you?' " "You never felt that way about guitars, did you?" "And this sinking feeling I have right now, Don, tells me that is how you learned to fly. You just got into the Travel Air one day and you flew it. Never been up in an airplane before." "My, you are intuitive." "You didn't take the flying
see if we knew him behind his country-bumpkin talk. "Will if you want, won't if you don't." "And you want the dear Lord's fortune, I suppose." 33 "Three dollars cash, sir, for nine, ten minutes in the air. That is thirty-three and one-third cents per minute. And worth it, most people tell me." It was an odd bystander-feeling, to sit there idle and listen to the way this fel low worked his trade. I liked what he said, all low key. I had grown so used to my own way of selling rides ("Guaran teed
though he had turned a laser on me. "I want to know how you landed here ..." "Listen!" he called across the gulf be tween us. "This world? And everything in it? Illusions, Richard! Every bit of it illusions! Do you understand that?" There was no wink, no smile; as though he was suddenly furious with me for not know ing long ago. The motorcycle stopped by the tail of his airplane; the boys looked eager to fly. "Yeah," was all I could think to say. "Roger on the illusions." Then they were on him