I keep thinking about Sam Wilson

Sam Wilson, who has wings made of metal and human imagination.

He was a paramedic. The maneuverability of his wings, the speed of his flight are all so he would be able to bring help to places no ordinary man could reach.

Imagine a soldier, stuck somewhere in the Alborz mountains, injured and dying, knowing that no helicopter can reach them, that no one would dare. Imagine looking up in your fever and seeing a pair of wings silhouetted against the sky.

Except, it’s not an angel coming to ease your way. It’s a black man, voice calm and reassuring, bandages and shots of antibiotic in his gear. He says his name is Sam and he asks you for yours. He asks you about your lover, about your kids, about the places you grew up in. Then he flies you off the mountain, trying to be gentle, but it’s jarring, because you’re alive.

You wake up in the hospital on your army base and you recover. You meet the man again and learn that there are more people with wings, a whole team and that when they take those wings off, they show you pictures of their dogs and buy you a beer.

Sam Wilson is a paramedic with wings. A healer and a savior.

Now, imagine Sam losing those wings. No, first, imagine him losing a soldier.

‘Is this the first time you lost a soldier?’ No, there were many, when the wings weren’t fast enough or when the blood flowed too freely. There were plenty of times you’ve sat down with someone who was saved by a different type of angel.

But losing someone who shares your sky? That’s different. That’s the sunshine melting the wax on your wings until they turn to feathers and you’re in freefall.

So you go back to Washington. It’s not the City of Angels, but it’s your city.

After a month spent sleepless, watching the skyline for some hint of a star, you walk into a Veteran’s center and you sit in a room full of people whose wings are clipped like yours.

You’re grounded now, but you can still heal, so you use your voice and try not to think of screams and broken metal feathers.

You take up running, because when you go really fast, it reminds you of the wind rushing against your face in freefall.

There, you meet a man that shines like the sun, blindingly enough to cover up his cracks. But you’re used to being closer to the sun than most. You see.

So you do what you were meant to: you heal and offer solace. First, with your words and then, when words aren’t enough, with your wings.

You take them out of storage and they call you Falcon.

Many of you were Falcons in the dry heat of the desert. Now, in a familiar skyline, you are alone.

You defend and you fight, because there can be no healing if there’s no one left to heal.

You are Sam Wilson and you have wings.