Anyone reading this have a blimp or sizeable dirigible I can have?
The “government” (I use this term loosely and with bile in my throat) has once again intervened to prevent me from joining the true Upper Class: Dirigible Owners. While stomping and setting fire to the airship I have been constructing in the empty lot next to the CVS, a black suited agent of so called law and order told me “The days of the gentleman airship pilot are over! You must make your due down here with the beasts that crawl upon the wretched earth!” I refuse. I look up at the sky and crave that comfort and luxury that is denied those who do not sail through it.
For years now I have been surrounded by others sleepwalking through a squalid middle class life, content to take to the skies in a balloon full of hot air. If you are a balloonist I implore you to stop reading now. I do not hate you, only everything you are and everything you represent. What was I saying again? Oh right, mere drifting through the sky in a balloon is directionless nonsense. A coworker once tried to convince me “its affordable, you can have a picnic up there with the whole family!” Can you believe that? I walked out of that job that day and have never looked back. When you think of the Duke of France or King of England do you see them scratching food out of the bottom of a balloon basket like a dog or standing astride the stern of his airship, surrounded by his court and finery?
It is to this class that I am denied. For years the warning signs that our economy was creating two societies- those with the means to purchase airships and those who do not- have been ignored. Would you want to live in a world where only the richest of the rich have access to the skies? I see in magazines that even a simple dirigible is now millions of dollars. You need a license or something also? Seems unnecessary, as the odds of colliding with something in the air are so remote you may as well worry about being struck with a meteor. Who would live their lives in such fear! If they will not let me build my own, simply give me one. I know someone out there has a spare one gathering dust at their skydock or airhook. I know to beg is uncouth but to be chained to this earth is a fate worse.
Often I find myself sitting in the empty lot next to the CVS, laying prone in the dirt and broken teeth of concrete that would not look so much like a mocking smile to those who see them from above. I listen to the soft muttering of the man who brings me the materials to begin construction again. I do not ask where he gets them or why he brings them to me. It is a small kindness in this world even though I have told him again and again I would leave him behind in a second if given the chance. If anyone has a spare airship or dirigible of any kind, please reach out to me here. If you glide over the empty lot next to the CVS you will find me there, with my hopes and dreams.
