You'll be a man, my son....

© John Spencer 2006

The balloon was being buffeted in the strong winds, and weighed down by lashing rain. Even with surplus ballast ejected the best the pilot could do was keep the thing high enough to try to find a suitable landing area. Already, he was beginning to think that almost any area was better than none; much more of this and either a crash landing was inevitable, or the envelope would rip and there would be a catastrophic fall from the sky.

Down there.

Down there was somewhere that had potential. Ahead of the balloon, on the path it was taking largely of its own accord, was a rambling old house with high walls around a large garden area. That area would provide a suitable landing place, and better than that, once down within the high walls the winds should stop being quite so fierce and might give Charles a decent chance of a controlled landing. Charles thought of a story he had been told about some small Caribbean airlines; that a good landing was one you survived, and that a great one was one where you could even use the plane again. Today he would be happy with a good landing; but that walled garden might just give him the chance of a great landing.

For Charles Corbett this balloon adventure was just the latest in a long line of activities he had embraced through most of his life. Skiing, waterskiing, motor racing, powerboating, and a whole host more. Even before reaching middle age Charles had tried more hobbies than most men have in a lifetime. So when his work colleagues had banded together to buy him a balloon ride from the 'Experience of a Lifetime' series of special gifts he had naturally gone for it.

Typically, he had enjoyed the ride, and the day. Charles immediately decided to take up ballooning, took a course through his local airport and became proficient and skilled at it.

Today, as he fought against the howling winds and horizontal rain to bring the balloon into land, or quite conceivably die in the attempt, he felt a trepidation that he hadn't felt for decades. The feeling took him back to his youth; he hadn't always been so daring and adventurous.

Nine years old, proficient at chess and already well read in the works of Verne and Wells Charles was known as a bit of a 'mummy's boy'. He rarely left her side, had difficulty relating to the other boys and girls in his school and avoided sports days and 'games' lessons at all costs. His father had despaired of both his wife's habit of wrapping their son up in cotton wool, and his son's lack of adventure and risk-taking.

For Charles it ended one hot summer's day in his tenth year. He had been playing in the 'old house' at the end of his grandmother's lane with a few friends when he had found himself separated from them. He had not realised they had gone home without him. Scared at first, he had calmed down and, in the hot sun, sat on the grass, leaning against a wall to have a drink. While relaxing, he had dozed. He was stirred from his slumbers by the sounds of a person nearby and opened his eyes to see a man standing over him. He was startled, afraid, and jumped to his feet. The stranger held out his hands in a reassuring posture, and backed off.

"Don't worry. I've been looking for you. Your Mum and Dad asked me to check you were okay. And Grandma Westholme is a bit worried, I think, because you normally get cigarettes for her and she was expecting you this evening," the stranger said.

Charles calmed immediately. The bit about Grandma Westholme, down to the way he referred to her, and the bit about the cigarettes, was too precise to be from anyone but a friend of the family. Obviously the man was telling the truth. Charles nodded. "I dozed off. I'll get on my way now and see her on the way home," he said.

The man sat down on a fallen tree trunk next to Charles. "No hurry. She's got some cigarettes left. Your Mum and Dad asked me to have a word with you." So they had talked for a while, easy talking, sometimes seemingly about nothing in particular. The man had a real knack of putting Charles at his ease. Charles shared his lemonade as they talked about friendships, adventures, taking risks.

The man used the phrase that 'Life is not a rehearsal; this is all there is so make the most of it" and somehow that really hit home hard to Charles. He didn't really know it then, though he felt the first stirrings, but it was a conversation that would totally change his life and put him on a quite different road. To friendship. Fun. Excitement.

It took the best part of half an hour - half an hour he hadn't believed he would have had half an hour ago - but somehow he got the balloon positioned above the centre of the garden and was bringing it down with something seriously approaching control. As the balloon got to wall height the effects of the winds were diminished and the first time for a long while Charles became convinced he had a fighting chance of survival.

When the basket hit the ground and the balloon envelope lost both its tension and its capacity to rip him back into the air, he knew he had made it. The fact that it tipped over and was in the process of throwing him out was insignificant in Charles' mind. Such a pity then that at that very moment the balloon, the basket, and Charles, were struck by a fierce bolt of lightning. The sort of lightning that in cartoons would have left Charles looking like an electrified, dancing skeleton, but that doesn't happen in real life. The sort of lightning that can tear holes in the time-space continuum and create wormholes and tunnels in time that would have made Newton give up apple-picking. That doesn't happen in real life either. Except this time it did.

Charles did his best to clear his head. The adrenaline that had kept him alert was crashing in his system; the shock of facing death and the equally stunning shock of beating it had numbed his mind. Gradually he was beginning to get back to normal. His heart rate was falling back to a decent level, his breathing was getting back into control.

Where was he? The first order of business was to find out where he was, and to get some assistance to get him back home. If the house had a friendly occupant he would at least be able to get himself out of the driving rain He looked around the

garden he had landed in.

"Hello," he called. "Hello. Anyone around?"

No answer.

He walked around the side of the concrete and wood shed in front of him, slipping his coat off to give him some relief from the hot sun he could now feel beating down on him. As he walked towards the house he wiped sweat off his brow. If he didn't get out of this sun soon, out of this heat, he felt he was going to collapse. And he so needed a drink.

As he approached the house he noticed a small boy against the stone wall, murmuring in his slumbers. He stopped, and looked back to where he remembered the balloon should have been laying on the lawn.

He recognised the boy, if he didn't recognise how he had got here.

And he knew what to do.

And what to say.