Alexander sits quietly, concentrating on the warm sunlight gracing his skin. He feels the heat spread across his face as it chases away the slight chill from a receding gust of wind. His eyes open as he hears its windy echo reverberate through the canyon before him. He ponders the open expanse.

Alexander shifts his gaze down to the valley far below, then up to the plateau far ahead. Such a magnificent creation, he mused. I'd like to meet the artist of such a masterpiece.

Closing his eyes and breathing in deeply, he turns his attention to feeling the light around him. He reaches out, touching a particle, a photon, and pulls it towards himself. It responds by gently arching toward the boy as if by a gravitational force. He reaches farther, gathering every particle in his little space and bringing them close: to his core, his center. A pocket of light forms inside Alexander. It feels of the sunlight outside, but it reverberates inside as if he were the canyon and the light was the echoing wind.

The light within him starts to burn, so with that indescribable supernatural force he pushes it back out, while retaining a hold on the growing mass. Alexander weaves that light, his light now, surrounding himself in it almost as if it were a blanket. Opening his eyes, he sees how the glowing coat illuminates the shadows under the nearby trees, casting out all darkness.

Another breath, and Alexander directs the light heavenward, just a bit. The blanket lifts him into the air, his shining tapestry defying gravity. He looks again at the cavity in front of him. To cross it is the challenge. Yet this young man has no fear; the light upholds him.

He laughs in joy and wonder. And with another whoop, he takes off running through the air. To push along, Alexander pads every footstep with light given solid form. The chasm quickly gapes open beneath him, dropping to a shadowed forest below. But he persists, dashing through the sky. The ground is no longer his home.

He slows to a stop, hovering midair. Then, accelerating upward, he gains altitude as a rocket at takeoff. The warmth of his radiant robe chases away the chilly air of these elevations.

Slowing to a stop, Alexander spins in place, taking in the world, his world. The canyon is now but a scratch on the surface of the landscape below him. Beneath, green forests and hills dominate, partially obstructed by a fluff of clouds. Southward, the colors fade into stone gray, with white at the peaks of snowy mountains. In the west, the forest slopes down and ends, becoming a yellow desert. The blue of a lake suggests itself in the east, its crystalline glimmer outshone by that of the sun's reflection off the windows of skyscrapers. That's the city, his hometown.

But that earthy world is no longer his home. He looks up to the blue expanse above him. Alexander spreads his arms wide, as a king before his court. "This is me," he proclaims to the whole earth, "This is my world."

And the vision drops.

I open my eyes to see the canyon, with the valley far below, the plateau far ahead. A gust of wind echoes through that open expanse, taunting me with its freedom, its flight through the air. The sun warms my face.

It was a dream. My world was a dream.

I'd imagined having freedom, a power beyond the physical restraints of mortals. Then it had ended. I get frustrated that I, bound to this low world, cannot have that power. The extraordinary will never be, and I remain alone. Weak.

Common.

In spite of my inner feelings, I smile. I reimagine my flight over the canyon, the light that I bent to my desire, the joy of the world before me. Indeed, I am bound to this world. But sometimes, through the glory and majesty of a random dream, I can be king of the world.

And with that thought, I take my notebook and begin to write.