It is night outside, yet he continues to work with the shadows from his oil lamp drawing dancing specters on his walls. Outside, the stars gleam in their full glory and the moon casts glorious beams of white light onto the streets, which are beautiful even as they are still and unmoving, giving a feeling of everlasting continuation. Inside the studio, the lamp’s light spins and twirls, mocking him in an endless series of gyrations, even as it helps him work, even as it illuminated his various failed sketches, on expensive paper, all balled up and thrown away. Yet, he continues to work, persevering where others have failed, to fulfill his dream as others have many times before.
	The man works for hours without stopping. He is like an ant, a machine, with a single fixed purpose; such is his fascination with his work. He does not even look away, and throws away papers haphazardly without looking at where they land. His only movement is to walk to a bookshelf, to pull out a book and hold it to the mirror, looking closely as if the answers to some of man’s greatest questions exist in it. Soon, crumpled papers with drawings litter his studio like dust on an upswept floor, merely adding to the clutter of bookshelves, unfinished paintings, and wooden models of various size and shape within the capacious space. Hours pass by without the man noticing the time, or the place; it is like the whole of his workshop is in a different plane of existence. It is not until a man walks up behind him and touches his shoulder that he finally stops working and looks up, finally noticing the time and state of his studio. “Wha-?” exclaims the man as he looks up, feeling the touch, and spies his friend, the Fra Pacioli standing behind him.
	Seeing the mess, his friend asks, “I assume you worked for the whole night again?” The man scrambles to shove the crumpled papers into a corner, like a street sweeper cleaning the streets and then turns to reply, “In my quest to finish my design, I am afraid that I quite lost my head, and the internal clock within it.” His friend, a priest and eminent mathematician, crosses the studio and sweeps numerous papers off a bench as carelessly as if he had memorized all their contents, before sitting down. “I assume you did not eat again?”
 “Yes, I am afraid so, as my stomach is now telling me. Yet I feasted on the fruits of knowledge.”  The man laughed, amused by his own wit, and added, “It is good that the markets are now opening, else I would starve for hours.” His friend nods and plays along, “Your mind cannot have feasted, else it would be full, and we all know that your mind has an insatiable hunger for knowledge.” He pauses, then continues, “Now, about the thing that you requested…” Our friend, the all-night worker’s face lights up, and he springs from where he sat as they conversed, and walks over to his friend, the excitement on his face evident. “You have it? Please, give it to me; I can wait no longer for it! Every moment is torture now!”
	Pacioli laughs and hands over a small package, which the man immediately, yet carefully opens. The Fra, a man of moderate height with a round face, olive colored skin like most Italians, and a straight mouth, watches his friend open the package, like a squirrel hoarding nuts. Pacioli, seeing this, laughs, and says, “You can never restrain yourself from knowledge, Da Vinci; you always leap at the chance to learn more.” The man does not even look up, so deeply in thought is he, as he replies, “As you said yourself, my mind has an insatiable taste for knowledge.” 
	Observing him so deeply absorbed with the papers, Pacioli offers, “Perhaps I should go buy food for both of us? Seeing as you will want to stay here, Leonardo, and work on your project?” “But of course, my dear Pacioli! And for food, you must have money!” Leonardo replies, as he hands over some coins, some silver, others copper, a few gold; Italian ducats, and florins made off many his contracts for paintings, “Will this be enough for breakfast?” “Yes, more than enough.” Pacioli replies, and leaves for the market, the rays of the morning sun shining upon his shoulders, creating golden bands of light on his shoulders, which channel all the way down his gown, and rise up to encircle his head in a halo, giving him an angelic look. “Appropriate,” Leonardo thought. “As he is a priest.”
	As Pacioli sets off to buy Leonardo and himself a much needed breakfast, Leonardo paces the studio, with images, numbers, words and designs running through his mind. He mutters numbers, facts, and thoughts under his breath, as if the disappearing specters on the walls will hear him and steal his work. He intends for the design he is creating to be his finest work, his crowning achievement, and he cannot afford to lose it. Yet, in spite of this, he does not wish to complete his design for the sake of fame or money; no, he simply wishes to get the feeling, of which no other man has. He simply wishes to “go boldly where no man has gone before”. He wishes to simply be the first. To fly, to defy gravity; to reach for the sky, the moon and the stars has been the dream of every earthbound being. Thus it has been since the dawn of time, and so it shall always be.
	He turns back to his drawing, of a glider, with his papers in hand. “Leonardo,” he says to himself, “this must be perfect! It cannot fail, for this will be your masterpiece! You will be the first man to fly.” He has been the first to do many other things, after all; he has built mechanical lions for the King of France and created and perfected paintings of acclaim and renown. Few of his inventions have actually been built, yet the things he has done give him a reputation as an inventor, architect, and painter. 
	Yet in spite of that, he is also prepared for failure. Success is never guaranteed, his projects are sometimes left unfinished. Often it is so; for to be finished, in Leonardo’s view, is for the object in question to have the best possible quality that Leonardo can impart on it. For an object to be finished, it has to be absolutely perfect, like a puzzle where all the pieces fit perfectly and fall in to place with elegance, leaving no holes or extra parts.
	Leonardo sits in a corner of his workshop, knees hugged close to his chest, thinking. It had to be perfect for him to fly. “In a job like this,” Leonardo thinks, “there cannot be any mistakes, no mishaps, for if there are, there will be no returning to fix it.” Leonardo considers the previous year, when he first conceived of the basic design of the flying machine, to look for inspiration. Back then, he had merely been watching birds, observing their skeletal structure and how they flew; they had seemed as far away as the sky at the time, which they had been. Yet with the pages he now held within his hands, there was now hope that man could fly as easily as a ship sailing through the sea parting the water; and feel the wonders that birds could experience. They are his wings, his magical carpet, and his ladder to the sky.
	Leonardo’s thoughts are interrupted by Pacioli’s return with food. As he chews, he thinks some more, his eyes becoming glassy, and his stare vacant. Pacioli looks at his friend, recognizing the look on Leonardo’s face, and decides to rouse him from his waking slumber, as the man knows; the inventor can sit there for hours, engrossed in his thoughts and obsessing with perfection. Leonardo’s waking takes the form of an open hand, waved in his face, which seems to have no immediate effect, yet, after a while, Leonardo awakes with a start, from what could have been an hour long “thinking slumber”.
	Leonardo awakes with a start, looking left and right, as if a bee had stung him, then realizes where he is, and resumes eating as if nothing had happened. However, once his stomach is satisfied with actual food, his mind begins to hunger again, and he rushes back into the workshop, leaving a not-entirely-bemused-Pacioli, who is accustomed to his friend’s strange mannerisms. 
	Back in the workshop, Leonardo puts out the flame with a petite puff of air, like he is blowing away a leaf, because his studio, which has many windows, is now filled with the light of the rising sun; orange, majestic, hopeful and strong; like a red-tailed hawk flying past a mountain. Leonardo looks at the light filtering into his workshop, bathes in it and absorbs it, as he knows that he will need all the strength and hope which the light can give him. Because, genius inventor though he may be, to design a machine, not built for the ocean or land, but to design a  machine built for the sky, is a challenge indeed. The land had already been traversed;  the ocean in the process of being conquered. No, Leonardo looked to the sky, the next frontier.
	Leonardo sets out; he will not be conquered by the sky; he will conquer it. Even as the sun rises high in the sky, like a bell; white-gold in blazing glory and then sinks, majestic even as it falls; strong even as it dies he works like a man consumed by fever; he cannot, or will not be conquered by his body, or time; his mind is much greater than both. He only ever stops for food, never for rest because to rest is to give in to the sands of time, which like succumbi, the devils of lust, drag people down and never let them go once they latch onto their weaknesses.
	He writes designs, writes calculations, and thinks on the nature of flight. He builds designs, models, and wings of various types and shapes. Many times his apprentices and Pacioli are concerned for his health he works so late; they need not worry. His dedication to flight, his willpower, and his “insatiable hunger for knowledge” sustains his mind as surely as the food sustains his body. For him, this work is his rest, is his joy, and is his sleep. Work on his project is not work, it is his rest; it is his everything. Just as surely as alcohol sustains alcoholics, work sustains him; he is the epitome of a workaholic. The weeks pass, like the wind rustling through the grass, and the design stays just out of reach, like a bird in the sky, flying by. He grows frustrated at times; but, like all great geniuses he calms down yet again and continues with his work, unable to get angry with his work, which is like an old friend to him.
	His design is finished eventually; his workshop’s floor is covered in a layer of papers, as plentiful underfoot as ants. Leonardo has only left his workshop on matters of business and food, even then, does he rarely do so. Occasionally, his friends have visited, bringing him food, or help with his work. His friends too are dedicated to their work, pre-eminent men in other fields of art, math, and science. Yet even they feel they must live up to Leonardo’s friendship. For he is a man who inspires awe even in the geniuses of his time, the Renaissance, a time of rebirth and learning, so dedicated and passionate is he about his work.
	In the very hour that Leonardo finishes the design, he begins the building process. Like a bee, flitting here and there, he rushes through the streets of Milan, going to woodworkers, canvas makers, screw-makers, rope-makers, placing orders for amounts of wood, rope, canvas, screws, and other objects of varying types and size. Pacioli meets Leonardo on the streets, and the two walk a while before talking. Pacioli initiates the conversation with a Leonardo who is so jubilant that he is literally bouncing with every step. 
“I see you have finished your design Leonardo?”
“But of course, Pacioli! Else why would I be trapezeing around the streets in such a fashion? Here, look at these designs. Are they not finished?” says Leonardo, thrusting a handful of papers into his friend’s face like a bouquet of the finest roses handed by an adoring fan to a musician. Pacioli takes the papers gingerly. Looking over them, for he has grown accustomed to Leonardo’s backwards handwriting, his face lights up, and he looks more closely. The words are drawn extremely close together, crammed, like Leonardo’s workshop, thoughts and objects and words and ideas all mixed together in a messy jumble. 
	The mess is difficult to read, and as he puzzles over the pages, he bumps into Leonardo, who has stopped, gazing at some birds in cages. Pacioli looks up, annoyed slightly by the intrusion into his thoughts, and realizes Leonardo’s intent. “So the usual then, Leonardo?” Asks Pacioli. “Hm…. Yes. It seems only fitting when I am on the verge of being the first man to fly.” 
      He points to a bird, a white dove, a little thin, yet still beautiful, like a cloud in the sky, as well as a plain brown bird, the color of wood, plain; but in truth it is a nightingale, with a beautiful voice, beautiful in its own way. He also points to a striking bird, with shades of grey on its back, a blend of brown on its head, yellow tipped wings, an orange tail and a few red tipped feathers; a bohemian waxwing, beautiful and striking
       As he takes the birds, he sighs, commenting, “I wish I could take all of them; set them all free. But alas, I have only so much money, so only these birds shall fly free.” On the spot, he sets all of the birds free but the dove, which he saves, adding to Pacioli, who has watched him, attention diverted from the text, “This one will be for my machine’s maiden voyage. It shall fly alongside my Great Bird, guide it through the skies, and bring mankind with it!”
      Over the next few months Leonardo enlists the help of his friends, and apprentices, whom he has left their various devices. As his friends and apprentices from the surrounding area reach Florence, Leonardo accosts them at the boundaries of the city, waiting sometimes for hours, before his helpers arrive. His first act is to welcome them, but then he begins business, swearing them to secrecy before allowing them to see his plans and constructions. 
      The work is arduous, and the days long. But the work takes no more than a month. Day by day, the Great Bird is formed. Like a bridge being built, the underlying supports are visible initially, but eventually fade into the background of wooden ribs, and supports, becoming innocuous. The plane is simple, yet also complex, as the design must be light, yet sturdy; the epitome of perfection. The Great Bird fills a workbench in Leonardo’s workshop. It is about the size of 2 men, from wingtip to wingtip, fully extended, and has a harness, designed to strap onto a man. Leonardo decides that he will be the last one to put the finishing touches on the Great Bird. It is only fitting, after all, that he so do as he was the one who created the design and conceptualized the whole process. The final night, he puts the finishing touches, the varnish, screws, glue, and other such things in under the watchful eye of all the builders, as if giving caresses to a baby. With a flourish, he finishes adding the varnish, and the first flying machine ever built by man is finished.  For a moment, and a moment only there is silence. So much so that one could have heard the crickets chirp, and the people laughing in the local pub. All present know that a momentous feat has been achieved; a moment never before experienced by mankind and never will be experienced again.
      Then a cheer goes up. The builders clap each other on the back, speaking words of congratulation, most of all to Leonardo. Leonardo wants to try to fly it that night, but is dissuaded by his peers, whose common sense tells that to fly at night is dangerous, especially when humans are not meant to fly to begin with. So Leonardo retires to Pacioli’s house for the night, for, like a child with a new toy, he can barely hold himself back.
      The next morning he wakes up to the sounds of the city’s warning bells tolling frantically. Leonardo knows that the bells only toll in times of huge fires, or invasion. His mind races, as does his body, both sprinting across the city to his workshop, to where his Great Bird lies, ready for her maiden voyage. By the time he reaches his workshop, it is already too late. The front of his workshop is already ablaze, burned by invading soldiers of France, who snuck up during the night, attacking at dawn after defeating the army. There were tendrils of fire reaching across and scorching the other buildings. Leonardo wastes no time cursing the soldiers, instead trying to find a way to save his invention, or the blueprints needed to construct them. He manages to find a break in the blazes and worms his way into the workshop. The Great Bird, though singed, is not seriously damaged, and many of the plans are still relatively untouched. But it will not last that way for long, Leonardo knows, so he gathers up all his scrolls, parchments, everything worth saving, and carries them in his robe, intending to fly out through a large open window in his workshop, as the wings fold slightly as they fly. 
      He runs to the Great Bird and straps it on, then runs to the 3rd floor of his workshop; the attic. He had always intended to fly from here, and kept the dove here for the very purpose. He releases the dove, and from there, he simply- jumps out. The Great Bird, as it was designed, catches the air, from the fire; bears him aloft. He is flying! He sees birds fly past, clouds in the air. People on the ground are small, like ants, and he flies past the temple, its spire close enough to touch. It is like floating in water; you feel weightless. The dove flies near him, as if reveling in its savior, and the flight of mankind. Leonardo could have stayed up in the sky forever, flying free, fulfilling his, and mankind’s deepest wish. 
      But, all good things must come to an end. Like the Icarus of legend, Leonardo’s wings broke too. His Great Bird is not a perfect design, as Leonardo thought it would be. Indeed, he has flown far more than he has had any right to expect, because of the air drafts. So as soon as he heads out of the city, intent on flying to Milan, he begins to fall.  To Leonardo, it is like slowly waking up from a dream .He cannot believe his eyes, even as the Great Bird falls, and the ground rushes to meet him. Even as he hits the ground, he is in pain, not because he fell, but because the Great Bird fell with him. The Great Bird lies, all his hopes and dreams, in a crumpled pile. As for Leonardo, he merely sits, and cries openly. He cries and cries, all his hopes, dreams, wishes, erased, taken away from him as if they were merely a dream. He cries until his tears are dried, and then simply moans. 
      The dove alights on his shoulder, and Leonardo looks up, feeling that the dove is mocking him, for trying to fly, for imagining that humans could ever fly. He shoos the bird away violently, yelling various obscenities in Italian. But the bird returns; and is shooed away again. But the bird, patient as an advisor to a general, returns again and again as if realizing that Leonardo’s bad mood is only that: a bad mood. Eventually, the bird flies to the opposite side of a small creek, sitting, watching, as if gazing at a predator; with curiosity and fear and interest. Leonardo gazes back, for he does not have it in him to chase the bird which he let free.
      Leonardo’s mind wanders, as it is apt to do. He remembers the past several months, the hard work, the building, the designing, and the papers which enabled it all. He remembers flying, building, reading, working. He knows that he will never have those feelings ever again. Yet, still, something tugs at him, the core of his essence, and the burning maelstrom of feelings. It is the one moment, the minute of timelessness where he flew. 
      Leonardo gets up. Perhaps it was only for a minute, and under circumstances which can never be repeated, but he flew, and became the first man to ever do so. He has taken the shackles of gravity off, only to replace them, but he can now see the freedom which can exist for mankind. 
      And so he walks. He walks on the path to fly.


A Genius, a Sky, and a Bird, 6-8, 2