By sunup, Jonathan Gull was practicing again. From five thousand feet the fishing
boats were specks in the flat blue water, Breakfast Flock was a faint cloud of dust
motes, circling.
He was alive, trembling ever so slightly with delight, proud that his fear was under
control. Then without ceremony he hugged in his forewings, extended his short,
angled wingtips, and plunged directly toward the sea. By the time he passed four
thousand feet he had reached terminal velocity, the wind was a solid beating wall
of sound against which he could move no faster. He was flying now straight down,
at two hundred fourteen miles per hour. He swallowed, knowing that if his wings
unfolded at that speed he'd be blown into a million tiny shreds of seagull. But the
speed was power, and the speed was joy, and the speed was pure beauty.
He began his pullout at a thousand feet, wingtips thudding and blurring in that
gigantic wind, the boat and the crowd of gulls tilting and growing meteor-fast,
directly in his path.
He couldn't stop; he didn't know yet even how to turn at that speed. Collision would
be instant death. And so he shut his eyes.
It happened that morning, then, just after sunrise, that Jonathan Livingston Seagull
fired directly through the center of Breakfast Flock, ticking off two hundred twelve
miles per hour, eyes closed, in a great roaring shriek of wind and feathers. The
Gull of Fortune smiled upon him this once, and no one was killed.
By the time he had pulled his beak straight up into the sky he was still scorching
along at a hundred and sixty miles per hour. When he had slowed to twenty and
stretched his wings again at last, the boat was a crumb on the sea, four thousand
feet below.
His thought was triumph. Terminal velocity! A seagull at two hundred fourteen miles
per hour! It was a breakthrough, the greatest single moment in the history of the
Flock, and in that moment a new age opened for Jonathan Gull. Flying out to his
lonely practice area, folding his wings for a dive from eight thousand feet, he set
himself at once to discover how to turn.
A single wingtip feather, he found, moved a fraction of an inch, gives a smooth
sweeping curve at tremendous speed. Before he learned this, however, he found
that moving more than one feather at that speed will spin you like a little ball... and
Jonathan had flown the first aerobatics of any seagull on earth.
He spared no time that day for talk with other gulls, but flew on past sunset. He
discovered the loop, the slow roll, the point roll, the inverted spin, the gull bunt, the
pinwheel.
Replies
I'm happy that he is still practicing and learning something new every time with all fear he could face.
Waiting for the next part !
Skoon ...
We will discuss about all previous chapters at the end of this part.
This part has got 6 chapters and it is the fourth one .
discussing about a subject is easier when we have small parts of them.
You are right but first of all we need to get a good background of the story. Let me ask if you could get the theme of the story ?
I’m still waiting for your idea about the story that you said you loved…
Maybe the main reason that I don’t agree about the time of discussing is this that speaking about the future isn’t fairly at all when present is here.
.
.
.
You are Jonathan,
I am Jonathan,
In fact every person is Jonathan, even every of those gulls is a Jonathan.
When I was child I thought that everything in the world is only created for me!
I didn’t have a true imagination from the others. I was colored and they were just like a shadow, every thing and every person was for me in my childhood’s opinion.
But when I grew up I understood that my thought was wrong completely, I saw that every person had his own life and s/he was trying just like me, not only every person but also every thing.
But now I find out my childhood’s imagination wasn’t wrong at all!
Every thing in the world is created for Jonathan.
Flying is a symbol of wishes. Jonathan is right to follow those gulls for his flying. When we want to be like a group and we try for it, we will be like them certainly. He is ready to devote every thing in his life for it. But the amount of that flying is so important. How much we want to fly is the most important thing and it will define the correctness of that devoting.
Oh!!
Something is missing here!
Reply by Sahar on February 27, 2011 at 11:46am
I’m still waiting for your idea about the story that you said you loved…
I meant this story;
Reply by Darius on January 16, 2011 at 5:44pm
...Let me know all other ideas and after all I will say mine...
I think all persons, who wanted to say their ideas, have said it.
Now it is your turn.
I'm still waiting to hear your idea about it.
To answer your nice writings above let me only write the writer's dedication at the first page of the book :
To the real Jonathan Seagull, who lives within us all.
Now, our book is signed by you.
Nice signature…
Thank you so much.