One for Wonder

Leaving my house today, bathed in warm sunlight I witnessed a magpie flying majestically from a house to a nearby wall.

It was incredibly graceful, first the bird dropped: free-falling like a skydiver; then swinging out its wings swerving to aim itself at the wall.
It once more tucked its wings in with its body and rocketed forward only to deploy them again to softly land atop the granite wall.

I have never wanted to fly so much in my life, to spread my wings and show the flare with which I can command the air.
I can tell, just standing there staring in awe at this magnificent creature of the sky that what is second nature to it would be an incredible heart-in-mouth experience for me.

This, however bizarre as it might seem to the rest of the world; leads me back to the old haunt of computer games. The only way I can experience the amazing thrill of high-speed tightly-controlled low-flight is in a computer game. In fact the only place I have experienced such a thrill was fighting the force-feedback to bring a small fighter plane under control in Battlefield 2 (probably my favourite game).
The game includes a flying component which often can only be enjoyed at the detriment of the regular game-play. You could say that bf2 players suffer as a whole so a select few can enjoy the thrill of flight.
So next time someone challenges my love of computer games I will ask them in return 'How else will I fly like a magpie?'