Wilcox has dreamed of this moment, but he cannot explain where he is or how he got here.
He grew up suckling on the stories of heroic balloonists: the innovators, the pilots, the poets, the daredevils; your Jacques Tarasques, your Sanjay Guptas, your Hugh Swifts; as is written: 'Ah, the balloon! -- the starlet of gas laws! the tireless Icarus! levity embodied! the inflated angel!'; all those forgotten unforgettables who died, flattened, after long wistful falls when the serene cerulean heavens, quite unprepared to receive guests, abruptly returned those men to their earth.
The boy who could tolerate the nagging gravity of this world should make a better mule than a man. As a child, Wilcox studied to escape the yoke but he began schooling an era too late. He never encountered any adventures through the London Academy of Dirigibility, only exercises in tedium. He remained moored. Wilcox graduated, laden with archaic knowledge and insurmountable debts.
Some War came and balloonery was entertained for warfare. He served as the officer of an airship squadron and his unit saw a single battle. A slew of malfunctions prevented Wilcox from flying at all. Warplanes were the fad of this war, casually sexy and casually lethal. Day-job dog-fighters mercilessly felled scores of balloons, like whalers upon a bounty. Wilcox remained grounded and was eventually discharged for incompetence.
The age of the balloon had passed. Balloons only filled the niches: surprise parties, weather instrumentation, stadium sportscasting, nothing of true practical value. Many out-of-work pilots were recruited into the factory floors who were paid poorly on pittances and nostalgia. Wilcox worked. He clocked in, stitched together these toys, he clocked out, got paid.
He goes home to his life.
High, adrift in one of the wintrier strata, he buoys in his masterfully engineered cloud. The gondola plummets as rapidly as the balloon lifts. He lives on daring. His tendons are taut, his hair bristles, his heart pitter-patter-pitter-patters.
Looking down, he finds his maps inaccurate. The earth bears neither lines nor names. It is difficult to read in dreams. Compared to his landscape of pastel papers and approximate shapes, crooked mountains and staggered pines contradict the tranquil uniformity described by his trusted cartographers. Below is so real, so pointlessly wild. It only matters that he is where he is.
He leaves his moment to return to his task, to where he is, to how he got there.
Wilcox sews his balloon during the midnight hours after work. He can envision exactly how his balloon will look a million stitches from now, a billion stitches from now. He can envision exactly where he will travel. Maybe this balloon never needs to fly. His scarlet fabrics are unfurled throughout all the chambers of his apartment, like a deflated heart in a ribcage. He blows breath into an unsewn opening to watch it beat gently.
