Children's Tale

[bluedrag]

This is an English version of a story I wrote a few years ago.

Papa Goes Around The World

Once upon a time, in the city of Boston in the distant land of America there lived a little boy. He had a rather peculiar Papa, quite different from all the other papas of all the other little boys.

The thing is, this Papa just could not stand all the modern inventions, tools and appliances. He disdainfully called them all “gimmicky gadgets”. Even seeing an electric tool would make Papa spit. Electronic devices disturbed him so much that he started cursing with bad words, and Mama would hurriedly take the little boy to another room.

Papa commuted to work on a bike rather than by car; he wrote letters to his friends on paper with an ink pen rather than via email. So, the little boy had an unusual Papa indeed.

Papa really liked to travel, but traveling turned out to be quite hard for him. After all, he could not use either cars or trains or planes, all these gimmicky gadgets.

One day, Papa had decided to set out to travel around the world. Then he planted himself in his favorite armchair and started to think how to go about it. First he thought about going on a bike, but then decided against it: after all, a bike can’t sail across the ocean. Then he thought about going in a sailboat, but again decided against it: after all, a sailboat can’t go over land. And then he jumped out of his armchair and yelled, “Got it! I am going to fly in a hot air balloon!”

 

You can’t just go and fly a balloon in the distant land of America. First, you need to get a pilot’s license.

Papa went to pilot school, and spent a long time studying there. They even forced him to fly a real plane, with a motor and a propeller. Papa really didn’t enjoy it at all: the motor rattled loudly, and stunk of aviation kerosene. It was really hard on Papa, but he persevered. Papa thought that in life it was really important not to drop things halfway, but rather to always finish what you started no matter how difficult it is.

And so one day Papa finally became a pilot, bought himself a hot air balloon, notified his coworkers that he would be back in a few years, untied the rope holding the balloon to the ground, and took off around the world.

 

Papa took off precisely at sunrise. All the hot air balloon pilots take off precisely at sunrise. If you ask them why, they would tell you that the wind is almost always dying out at that moment, and that makes flying easier.

And this is complete rubbish. They just tell you that so you’d leave them alone.

Indeed, they all are experienced pilots, they all went to pilot schools and they all got their licenses. They can easily take off and land in any kind of wind. Between you and me, when a fresh breeze is blowing, the large tree trunks are swaying and the sea is covered with white caps,—there is much more fun taking off then rather than when everything is still.

The real reason is simply this. When the young morning Sun is unhurriedly peeking out of the tops of the surrounding trees, out of the waves of the surrounding seas; when its rays, illuminating the smallest air particles, unhurriedly approach the surface of the balloon and the skin on their faces; when the entire world has just started shining with happy gold,—the pilots suddenly get that special feeling that their life is not wasted for nothing. Hot air balloon pilots are all very romantic people; they just try to hide it.

Papa’s balloon was painted in multiple bright colors. Hot air balloon pilots always paint their balloons in multiple bright colors. That’s because they are all joyful people, and they want to share their joy with all the others. Let’s take you for example, would you enjoy your life if you could fly over the sky? I am sure that you would! And you would certainly take off exactly at the sunset, and paint your balloons in multiple bright colors.

Papa stayed in his gondola—a basket woven from willow branches—looking around and enjoying his life. From time to time he would turn his burner either on or off. When the burner was on, it heated the air in the balloon, and the balloon went up. When the burner was off, the air cooled down, and the balloon went down, too. To control the hot air balloon, one needs to find, using the burner, the right balance between up and down, the heat and the cold. Papa thought that it was always extremely important to find the right balance in life, and that traveling in a hot air balloon was teaching him this crucial life skill.

Papa’s balloon was going where the wind was taking it. After all, it’s impossible to steer a balloon: it has no rudder and no sails.

The wind was taking it first north over America, and then east over the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic Ocean, by the way, is pretty big. Or, at the very least, it appears big to those who haven’t reached the Pacific Ocean yet.

It takes many, many days to cross the ocean. How many—depends on the wind. Could be twenty, and could be one hundred and fifty.

Papa was not in a hurry at all. He was fine both with twenty and with one hundred and fifty. Each day he marked his location on the chart with a little cross, and whistled with satisfaction. If Papa were in any hurry at all, he would never ever fly in a hot air balloon.

But how did Papa know his location? After all, he didn’t have any usual navigational tools with him. Papa refused to take anything that required batteries to work on his trip. When other adults asked him for a reason for such an unconventional decision, he responded that it was not safe: what if the batteries ran out? In such a serious endeavor as a trip around the world, explained he, it is irresponsible to rely on anything that can just run out.

But to himself he just chuckled, why, all these gimmicky gadgets! What kind of life is that?! Let them stay on land. I’d be better off without them.

Instead of gimmicky gadgets, Papa brought with him a sextant of the great American captain Joshua Slocum. Papa had bought it one day in an antique shop in Boston.

Between you and me, Captain Slocum had sunk with his ship many, many years ago. One would assume that his sextant went down with him as well. How could Papa believe that the sextant really belonged to Slocum, I have no idea. But it was indeed very old, made one hundred or two hundred years ago, completely busted, and thus quite cheap.

During the day, Papa took the sextant out of its box, measured the Sun’s altitude over the horizon, and started to make the calculations to figure out his location. At night, Papa waited for the burner to go off, took the sextant out of its box, found a sufficiently beautiful star, and also tried to measure its altitude over the horizon. He always failed at that: it is very dark at night over the ocean, and you just can’t see the horizon.

Then Papa waited for the Moon to rise, and measured the distance between the star and the Moon. To figure out where you were based on those measurements required even more complex calculations. Papa waited for the morning to have enough light, and then got to work. He didn’t even have a calculator; he computed logarithms in his notebook using long division.

Unsurprisingly, by that time the Sun had already risen. It made sense to measure its altitude with the sextant, and to discard the night measurements already. But Papa thought that in life it was very important not to stop halfway, and to always finish what you started, no matter how difficult it is. And what about you? Do you always finish what you started?

When Papa had any free time after all his calculations, he undressed, enjoyed the Sun and read his favorite books: The Treasure Island, The Little Prince, The Physics of Aeronautics, and Sailing Alone Around the World.

But sometimes the fair weather was gone. The temperature suddenly dropped, the squally wind came up, freezing rain hit the face. Then Papa promptly put his books in a special small chest that he had in his gondola just for such an occasion, put on a rubber jacket, rubber pants and rubber boots, and heroically operated his balloon through such foul weather.

Frankly speaking, there was not much for him to operate. After all, there is no rudder and no sails in a hot air balloon, just a lever to turn the burner on and off. Papa heroically stood there and operated that lever until the storm had passed.

While all that was happening, Papa was cold and wet, but he still was enjoying his life. He stood with a silly smile on his face. He opened his mouth and drank raindrops. He listened to the howling of the wind and to the tapping of raindrops against the balloon surface as if it was a concert of the most famous conductor. To successfully operate a balloon, said Papa addressing the birds and the storm clouds, the most important thing is to blend with the air and the wind, to become one with them.

 

Papa’s balloon flew where the wind took it. The unending expanse of the Atlantic turned under the gondola into the green of Irish and British woods and fields, Dutch canals, snow-white caps of the Alps.

Over the Swiss Alps, a rather strong breeze had picked up. Papa fell asleep, and when he woke up, there was no wind anymore. Instead, there was a very thick fog all around him. He couldn’t see anything neither above, nor below, nor on the sides. The balloon was floating as if in cotton wool. Papa stretched his hand and touched the fog. It even felt like cotton wool, only wet.

Because of the fog, Papa had no way to know where he was. Sextants don’t work in the fog. But frankly, even if Papa could use his antique sextant, it was so busted that it would hardly even identify the right country.

A few hours had passed, and the fog started to lift. Up above everything was still covered with patches of cotton wool, while down below Papa could already see green meadows and plowed fields. He still couldn’t figure where he was, though: there are fields and meadows in many different countries and many different continents around the world.

Suddenly, two fighter jets emerged out of the fog in Papa’s direction—two MiG 29s with red stars on their wings and red-and-green flags on their tails. Papa recognized them right away: when he went to the pilot school, they forced him to learn all the different plane models. And here, all that totally useless knowledge suddenly became quite useful.

The jets dipped their wings, as if greeting Papa. Papa smiled and waved back at them.

The jets made a wide circle around the balloon and dipped their wings again. Papa waved back at them again.

He never expected such a welcome. Papa never expected any welcome at all! He never told anyone about his trip, and never wrote about it in social media. After all, he didn’t have neither a computer nor a smartphone!

But people somehow learned about Papa anyway. In New Hampshire, dozens of other hot air balloons took off to meet Papa. They all flew together for hours over the New Hampshire mountains, filling the sky with their bright balloons and waving at each other. And when Papa flew over the Dutch city of Eindhoven, kids there let go of three thousand toy balloons of different colors, and it was very funny to see Papa trying to avoid them.

But still, this was the first time he was welcomed with an Air Force parade. Papa smiled, rubbed his hands and thought, What a great idea was to go around the world! So many exciting, completely unexpected things are happening to me!

All that time, the fearless fighter jet pilots were repeating the same thing over the radio: “Attention! You have violated the state border of the Republic of Belarus! Leave Belarusian airspace immediately!”

Papa couldn’t hear them; after all, he didn’t have a radio. But even if he heard them, he wouldn’t be able to fulfill their request anyway. There is no rudder in a hot air balloon, and no sails. Just a lever to turn the burner on and off.

Over sudden, a missile disconnected itself from a wing of the leading MiG, and flew towards Papa. Papa first saw the red stars painted on its sides, and then its obtuse sloping white nose. That was the last thing that Papa saw.

They didn’t even give Papa’s remains to Mama. No remains remained. Papa, and his gondola, and the special small chest with his favorite books, and even the famous sextant of the great Captain Slocum—after the explosion of the R-77 “Viper” homing air-to-air missile, they all got scattered into smallest particles in the gray and endless Belarusian sky, blended with the clouds and the fog.

 

Mama wrote an obituary in the most important Boston newspaper.

I am proud of my husband and his heroic achievements. He perished doing something he loved. He wanted to become one with the wind and the air, and he accomplished that. He always accomplished what he set to do. But still, what a silly, pointless death! Why would you fly around the world in a hot air balloon? Why can’t you just buy a plane ticket?