The Sky Gondola

Clouds surround me as I navigate the currents in the sky. My gondola turns into a headwind and I strain against the oar vainly trying to steady the only thing between me and the distant ground below. I steer left, then right, looking for a pocket of clean air. The clouds surge toward my little craft and I brace for the worst until a ray of sunlight to starboard. Pulling hard on the oar, the gondola swings quickly in the wind and enters the gap in the clouds. Carry speed from the storm behind, my craft slips easily out into open sky. Down below me, green rolling hills shoulder small towns and the arteries that connect them. I imagine settling down in one of them and begin to scour the countryside for a piece of land to call my own. Off in the distance, there seems to be a golden shimmer just before the horizon. Using my spyglass, the shimmer seems to be composed of many smaller objects moving together. As they get closer to a small town, bells begin to ring. The melody that greets me is urgent, almost frantic. It's only then that I realize that the bells are ringing not in serenade but alarm!

I drop the spyglass into its holster on my belt, grab the oar and begin nosing the gondola down toward the little town. The bells are growing louder and what was a golden shimmer has revealed itself to be a brush fire raging toward the little area. Walking on the scorched earth behind it were tall slender men fanning the flames. My distraction was so complete that I nearly crashed the gondola into a small clump of trees just outside the village. The bells were quite loud at this point and before I could make the main gate...

To be continued.

If you'd like me to keep writing about this, please leave a comment requesting I do so. Otherwise, I'll assume this experiment was of interest to no one but me and try something else ;-)