Not too long ago, we were not all stuck on the earth by gravity. Some of us flew. There were those who danced on the clouds – riders of the wind, free from the law that bound the rest on earth.
Those of the ground mostly ignored “the ones in the sky”. Oh, they knew they were there, but they’d never talk about them. They would never admit it, but you could tell, something in the look on their faces, that they felt inferior to these airborn. For who in their right mind would want to draw constant attention to his disadvantaged condition?
Among those stuck on the ground was a boy named Mego, who once thought just the same as everyone else. He didn’t care for the airborn any more than he liked his drab house or his boring school. Like all children, Mego knew from an early age that life was not the way it should be. He was weighed down by gravity like all of his friends. He got scratches and bruises and headaches and ear infections and all the rest.
Twice he bumped into the airborn.
The first time was when he was very small, while he was alone in his parents’ yard and looking up at the sky. He saw a tiny blip of something dart from one cloud to another. He knew it had to have been bigger than a bird. Squinting hard, he tried to spot the thing again; and he did – at least he thought so. “It isn’t a bird,” said little Mego. “What is that peaking out of the big cloud?” He was right to think something was there, hanging still, at the edge of the puff that seemed now not too far away. Someone’s head, with flowing hair, was peering downward and seemed to notice him. And then the shape hovered away from the cloud, dancing its way down in twirls and flips, until he saw that it was a woman. Her smiling face and benevolent eyes were pinned on him with interest, as she descended into a sitting position on their family’s outdoor wooden dining table.
“Aren’t you a curious one.”
It would have been difficult for us to tell whether Mego’s face expressed curiosity or blatant suspicion.
“My parents told me there were people like you. I didn’t believe them then.”
“I do hope they spoke well of us,” she said.
In the way only little kids can do best, Mego responded, “Not really,” to which she made a slight and embarrased chuckle. He went on: “How many others can fly, like you?”
“Countless others.” And she told him how they came to be able to fly. She explained there were ancient writings contained in a book from which anyone who read and believed them was given the ability. Being very young as he was, and not having developed an adult’s sense of critical thinking, Mego did not question her. But he was curious; curious to find out for himself whether or not it was true.
“Maybe I’ll find that book someday.”
“I hope you will,” she said sincerely.
He remembered how she leapt up into the air, not like the leap a normal human would make, when immediately you drop again to the floor. It was as if she were drawn up by a rope, or a crane, only nothing was attached to her. The wind and the woman became as one.
For his young mind, Mego could not grasp the magnitude of such freedom, but he could only wonder. He was left in a state of bewilderment for some time, until after a few months had passed and ordinary life went on and he nearly forgot about the woman from the clouds, and forgot about the book. There were certainly many things in the world to distract him. In fact, after such a chance encounter, you might ask why he held such dislike for the airborn in the years to come. Maybe it was simply because of the influence of everyone else.
The second time he encountered the airborn, he was a bit older, in his mid-teens. He was taking a long and lonely walk in the hills along a quiet stream, in spring. In a stretch of grass lay a man, but not too old, looking as carefree as a butterfly with his arms behind his head and a piece of straw in his teeth.
Mego was initially startled to find someone else there in the meadow.
“Where did you come from?”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re miles from town. Do you come here often?”
“As often as I like. It’s peaceful here.”
As the man said this, he began to float, his body about a whole foot from the ground. But his posture remained the same.
“You’re one of them!” Mego exclaimed.
The man snickered. “You mean I’m one of them that enjoy a peaceful meadow, space to breathe freely, a whole sky to move around in?”
“Well…” Mego suddenly felt the allure of what the man was saying. What a wonderful thought!
But then, the sky wasn’t always bright and clear, was it? “What do you do when it storms?”
“That’s simple. We fly above the clouds. You can’t see it from down here, when you’re drenched in the rain and there’s darkness everywhere. There’s always sun just beyond it all.”
“But wouldn’t you … freeze up there? In science class they said there’s quite a range of atmospheric temperatures, depending on the altitude and the time of day.”
“You’re so full of questions. I wonder, do you really want to know about these things? The power of the words from the ancient text protect us.”
“Did you read from the magical book, too?”
“Of course! It’s the only way. There are many copies of the text; you just have to make a point to find it. But there are few who actually do; fewer who read it faithfully; and fewer still who handle it rightly.”
Handle it rightly? What in the world did that mean? This man seemed to be speaking a completely different language.
“Just one more question,” said Mego.
“Ask away.”
“Once you gain the ability, can you ever lose it – and go back to the way you were before?”
“No. That’s part of the magic. Once you have it, you never lose it.”
Once you have it, you never lose it. Mego said the words over to himself again, two times, three times, as the young man and he parted, Mego to the west, the young man to the east. The airborn strolled away casually, and Mego wondered why he wouldn’t fly off. But after a moment he looked back eastward, and the man was no longer there.
It must be nice, Mego thought to himself, to have that sort of freedom, to fly off whenever you want. It was almost as if, in that moment, the desire to test this magic for himself took hold of him. After all, what was he to lose? Suddenly everything that he thought he held dear seemed to be childish, and temporary.
That second encounter was what thrust Mego into his quest for the book. Now he was determined to find it. A couple of months had past since he saw the young man in the meadow, and all the while he went back and forth on whether or not he should leave home. After all, what would his friends think? And if he was fortunate enough to gain the ability, would his parents reject him? Perhaps they would, but it wasn’t enough to stop him.
Although he knew he had to leave home, and he picked a day to do so, he didn’t know where to start. He kicked himself for not having asked the young man that day. Where was he going to go in search of the book? It could be anywhere. Did the airborn have a cathedral built somewhere to hold it in?
He thought long and hard in his room one night. Where would they have kept a copy? And where would he find another of them to ask? Is there a village of them? Have they built a home for themselves somewhere in the skies?
He would start, he decided, by returning to the hills and the exact spot in the meadows where he had met the young man. So he packed a few things, leaving most of his belongings behind, took money in his pocket, and set out one morning on his quest. He made sure to leave early, before the sun rose, and his parents too. He had every intention to return home, but no intention to set a limit for himself on how long he would be away.
It was about an hour’s walk to the park and open space, and another hour into the hills until he reached that spot. Along the way he had the strangest feeling, but quite a positive one, that he had started on the most real and meaningful experience of his life; and not only that, but it seemed that he was being drawn by the thrill of this new desire, that he thought he might never want to turn back at all. Somehow an energy he only felt once or twice before as a small child kept him trodging forward, the kind of energy you get when you have a purpose ahead of you, and you’ve fixed your mind on that one thing. No, nothing could turn him back.
When he reached the area of the meadow in which he once encountered the airborn, he sat and waited, but without a wristwatch he couldn’t tell exactly how long. It must have been hours. The heat of the day was coming on, and he thought he might soon have to find shade. He wished he had brought a hat, at least! He looked around him for a patch of trees to serve as a shade. But then, under cover of branches he wouldn’t be spotted from above.
He was about to lift himself up when a voice said from behind him, “I wondered if I’d see you again.”
Mego spun around, and to his delight, there stood the airborn he had met two months ago, standing sharply with the gleam of the sun in his hair. Mego stood up and wiped his forehead of sweat.
“Hello. I didn’t ask for your name, last time we talked.”
“It’s Dorean. I saw you from above and thought you might have some reason for coming here today, other than enjoying the walk. Your look tells me you want to read from the book.”
“Can you tell me where I can find one? I want to be free, like you, and fly.”
“Do you know Mount Ares? In the east? There’s a temple at the summit. I’m sure you’ll find it there. But it’s not an easy climb to the top.”
“Then, couldn’t you carry me there?”
Dorean chuckled. “I asked the same thing when I was first told of the place, a few years back. They said I should climb it on my own, and show my courage. Don’t worry, you may not have to do it alone. There’s a town at the base of the mountain. Perhaps you’ll find someone there who wants to go with you.” Then Dorean started to hover, very slowly ascending. “Take the train to Saranto. I hope to see you in the clouds, my friend. I’ll look for you.”
After Dorean disappeared, Mego wasted no time in finding the nearest train station and buying a ticket for Saranto. He had to be careful, as he didn’t have very much money, and he’ll be needing food on his journey.
The good part was that Saranto was about seven hours by train, and they happened to provide a meal on board. The bad part was that Mego had to wait until the morning for the next departure heading that direction.
You can imagine how demoralized he felt when all that he could find to sleep on that night was a stone bench. Using his backpack as a pillow, and suffering through cramps and cold, it was without a doubt the worst bed that gravity ever forced him to endure. So when he boarded the train the next morning, he was stiff and sore, and had a bit of a headache. At least the seats on board were cushioned and he could relax there for a while.
About mid-trip as he sat in the corner of a car with about twenty others, he thought to himself: Why doesn’t everyone want to fly? He watched a few of the other passengers, who were all sitting contededly and engaged, one whose head was buried in a newspaper, another two playing at cards, two others chatting quite enthusiastically, something about the latest advances in technology. But there was another, an Asian woman, about middle-aged, who sat calmly by herself and peered out the window. In her hand was a pencil which hovered over a sketchbook laid out at the table before her.
Mego decided to stretch his legs and stand to see what it was she was drawing. It might have been herself she drew, but it was plain she hovered in the sky, and the backdrop contained what seemed to be a mountaintop, upon which was a beautiful building. Mego slowly tiptoed toward her table, until she noticed him and smiled.
“Hello,” she said.
Mego realized he was prying and responded nervously, “Sorry. That’s a very nice sketch.”
“Why, thank you. It’s meant to be Mount Ares.”
Mego felt his face flush, and he couldn’t help but plop himself down across from her. “So then, you know about the airborn’s temple?”
The woman kept smiling. “There is a legend of my country in the East, of a great bird of golden hue, one so rare in sighting, that one day lost one of its feathers while it perched atop a mountain; the feather was nurtured by the ground and given life and grew, first as a bush of feathers, then a great golden tree, so large that when men noticed it from down below the mountain they ventured up to it and carved out of it a beautiful temple. It is there, the legend says, that the first men learned how to fly.”
“So you’re going to Mount Ares? Do you believe it’s true – that the temple is there?”
“It’s worth looking for it.”
“I’m on my way there now.”
At that, the woman held out her hand, and he politely shook it. “I’m Melati,” she said. “Shall we go together?”
Mego of course was ecstatic. “Oh, yes please.” He did not want to go up alone. Any company would of course be a help, and especially from someone with the same intent and aspiration.
Her tone altered, then, and she looked pensively out the window at the streaming ribbon of greenery. “Have you considered what you leave behind? I mean, the world changes, when you’re up there. You’ll be forever changed – it’s a bit frightening, really.”
“I think that’s what draws me to it. I can’t say my life’s been great up until now.” The more he thought about his past, the more he was assured that what he said was true. His memories were all but glamorous. In fact, he was starting to dislike who he was before.
“Is that what you’re after? If not the pleasure, could it be the independence?”
“I can’t say for sure,” said Mego. He glanced around at others in the car. “If it was all about those things, wouldn’t everyone be searching for the book?”
And so they sat, and so they chatted, for the remainder of the ride.
At last they heard from the overhead an operator’s voice: “Arrival at East Saranto Station in five minutes. Please prepare for departure.”
There was never a town more apparently in the shadow of a single mountain than Saranto. Earth’s great appendage rose above, a green and grey thumb, imposing even next to the sizable town, and seemingly insurmountable to the two travelers who stepped out of East Saranto Station. Gawking at Ares’ magnificent image, it seemed to them that it was the one place the sky really met the earth.
They both agreed that despite it being midday already, instead of stopping for accomodations first, they were too eager to find an upward path and had had a sufficient amount of rest on the train.
It was obvious at first which way to go; all they had to do was to keep that great mountain in front of them. But as the ground rose more and more, and the houses and buildings were fewer and fewer, and the streets came to an end, then their task became difficult.
A couple times they asked citizens strolling by whether there was a path up to the temple on the mountain. While they expected a pleasant yes or no, they got nothing of the sort. Instead the citizens sneered at the mention of it and gave them the cold shoulder. They weren’t given any answer at all. It was as if the people there didn’t want anything to do with the temple, or regarded it as something detestable.
They found no obvious straight path when the ground rose steeper. There was a way up about twenty or thirty feet which wasn’t covered by bushes or thorns, and which contained only a few trees, but then a sheer rockface obstructed them thereafter. Mego stopped before the rockface as if he were struck by a wave of despair. This physical obstruction translated into a barrier of his mind to go on further. He was brought to think that his ventures were just vain wanderings, and the destination only illusory. And he thought of the faces that had been made by the citizens when they had mentioned the temple, how full of distaste they had been. Did the townspeople disbelieve in its existence? Had Dorean misled him all this time?
He was almost brought to tears by the weight of his thoughts, when Melati took hold of his arm.
“Come, let’s try this way.” And then he was especially glad in that moment to have a travelling companion. So they ventured around the side of the rockface for a long while until there was a clearing – a little brook that cut through. This seemed to continue upward for quite a ways, so it was their best bet.
“Will your legs make it?” he asked Melati.
“I think so,” she replied. “If I have to use the rest of my strength to get to where I don’t have to use my legs anymore, it’s worth it.”
So they travailed the brook’s course. They climbed, and climbed, until the soles of their shoes had almost worn away, and their strength also. In fact their rests became more frequent, as not only was their energy depleting, but higher up the air was thinner, and so their lungs could not fill with the oxygen they were used to. Mego wondered then, how the airborn were able to breathe, up in the clouds and beyond. It seemed scientifically impossible. But somehow, despite all his doubts, they were able; there was no point in disbelieving it.
When it grew dark they could go no further, not without a good rest. So they found a place to lie down on a large patch of leaves. With all of the discomfort of that earthy ‘bed’, Mego was most concerned about spiders and insects. That was another bother he would be glad to be rid of, he thought.
They could see a good portion of the night sky opening up to them like an embroidered tapestry, stitched with bright paints puncturing its darker colors. Melati stared out at this without blinking. “Why is it that the most beautiful things come from above, just out of reach?”
Mego thought at first to object, but he held back. There is a sense in which she was right.
Gradually Mego’s eyes fell on their own and his mind drifted off. But at some point there came a howling, and they both started.
“What is that?” whispered the woman.
“I think it’s wolves.”
“Do you think they’ll find us? Catch our scent? We have nothing to defend ourselves with.”
The howl broke through the air again.
“They don’t sound close, but I could be wrong.”
There was nothing they could do at that moment except stay close to each other. At least the howlings did seem to grow fainter, as if the beast or beasts were traveling the other direction. The noise died off, and Mego drifted to sleep again. Some time later there was a crunch of a twig, and he jerked awake. He glanced in the direction of the noise, to his left. He couldn’t be sure, but there seemed to be two glowing, yellow eyes, between a couple branches of the trees. He shook Melati awake.
“What?”
“It’s there,” he pointed. “See it?”
“See what?”
But when he looked again, he saw only darkness.
“We should go.”
“Before light?”
“Yes – we can’t stay here any longer.”
They were off at once, the fright feeding them with eager energy to complete the climb.
The stillness of the open air was accompanied soon by birdsong, and broken not long after by a light breeze. They no longer had to stumble upward through the thickest underbrush, nearly blind. Their way lighted before them, and although it was steep, and they were quite cold, and could hardly breathe the thin air into their lungs, their determination was wind beneath their feet.
They might have been in a cloud already, when at last they pulled themselves up onto a boulder and glimpsed beyond where just across a ridge rested a sight brilliant in beauty and beckoning to them. The sun of morning cast its first rays onto a structure of marble, onyx, timber and stone, with spires pointed upward, great open windows and arches. It was a temple of light, illuminated by the dawn.
“Is it what you imagined it would look like?”
The woman’s eyes were glowing; as if brightness had found lodging in her face.
“It’s better.”
Despite their legs being weaker and more sore than ever, they pushed through the pain, as their attention was rapt in what lay before them. They passed a few boulders and came to a neat, combed path of coarse sand. Perfectly trimmed hedges ran along the sides. The path was shaped a bit like a spade, right along the edges of the crest, and led to the grand entrance. No door blocked the way in, but a short flight of stairs led up to an open antechamber, marked by pillars. They were surprised to find many people standing around the hall or sitting on cushioned chairs or upon the stairway in front, chatting merrily and eating. They all appeared to be so free of spirit, content and joyful in one anothers’ company.
When Mego and Melati hobbled up the path, two of the residents stood up and approached them.
“Welcome, travelers,” said one. “That is quite a climb you’ve endured. You must be tired. Will you have some breakfast with us?”
They could not refuse, and so took some bread, cheese and fruit and sat down briefly upon the steps. But Mego was growing more and more impatient to find what he came for.
“Do you keep a copy of the book here? The text that gives one the ability to fly?”
“We do. It is in the atrium beyond the hall. I suppose that is why you’ve come. It’s not for us to prevent you, and since you seem so eager to read from it, I’ll take you there right away.”
Mego stood at once. “Yes please!” He ignored the pain that shot through his stiff legs.
“Then follow me.”
“Are you coming?” Mego asked the woman, who sat still with half a loaf of bread in her hands, and her mouth full. Melati looked at the bread, and then back up to him and nodded, and handed the bread to someone else.
As they went, Mego noticed there were still others sitting way up on a ledge near the ceiling, their feet dangling.
They passed through a door to the atrium, which must have been at the center of the temple. Here Mego felt as if they were tiny specks of dust having been captured in a bottle; the hall was immense, its great rounded walls extending several stories high glimmered of polished stone, and tapered inward some. Directly up above them the ceiling opened in a circular glassless outlet, or orifice, that revealed the brightening sky. The whole room was a wonder, and their hearts lifted within them. Toward the far end of the tiled floor there stood a lectern, but this one was not meant for someone to deliver the word that lay upon it; but instead to receive it. A book rested on its slanted top, which Mego could only guess was the text that he had been searching for this whole time.
Their escort approached the book on the lectern and unceremoniously flipped the cover to the first page. “You needn’t read more than the first page for it to take affect. Please, be my guest.” He motioned with his hand to the book and backed away.
Mego took a step toward it, and stalled. He looked down at his feet, and wondered for a moment if it was right of him to continue. But it was only for a moment; his curiosity compelled him forward to stand before the book and start reading the page immediately. The illuminated manuscript was stunning, but that was not the point. What he read silently was to him enlightening and wonderful. I’m afraid that for you and I those magical words will have to remain a mystery for now.
As soon as he had got through the text on the page, he did not feel any change. He thought maybe a rush of energy would fill him, or some wind would whirl around him. Nothing of this sort took place. He did not feel anything at all. But one thing was sure, that he knew this was what he wanted, and nothing was going to turn him back. The skies were summoning him.
Their escort smiled and indicated that he stand in the very center of the atrium, below the open orifice.
Just then Mego did feel something, that he was so much lighter. The soreness and pain from their hike up the mountain vanished. The way that gravity pulls all your muscles toward the ground, lifted entirely, as if the hall he stood in was slowly filling up with water. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again he was two feet up from the floor.
- Tim Vander Meulen