On a table someone spreads old photographs, a test of recollection. And friendly laughter echoes at shocks of hair gone gray or white, or merely gone. The rugged, slender bodies lost forever. Yet they no longer need to prove their strength. The women, all those that waited, all those who loved them, have watched the changes take place.
Talk turns to war and planes and foreign lands.
Stories are told and told again, reweaving the threadbare fabric of the past. Mending one more time the banner of their youth. They hear the vibrations, feel the shudder of metal as engines roar, propellers whirl, and planes come to life. These birds with fractured wings can be seen beyond the mist of clouds, and they are in the air again, chasing the wind, feeling the exhilaration of flight, close to the heavens. Dead comrades, hearing their names spoken, wanting to share in this time, if only in spirit, move silently among them.