Living on earth signifies mastering the art of living. Never, even from the very beginning the man complies with mere survival. He always strives for the beautiful, unreachable, difficult. He always will. I look back. That’s what I do. I look back. In an attempt to understand, to grasp what and who makes me what I am, the European. It is twenty first century. Circa four and half thousand years ago the Minoans build their first palaces in Crete. They start our history, then it just follows. I see the Aegean, the temptation to sail it. So be it, the art of sailing is mastered. I see the skies and the utmost desire to fly it. The Greeks fantasise about flying.  It will take a little longer. In 1250 the Englishman, one of the greatest philosophers of modern times, Roger Bacon speculates on the possibilities of flight. He writes: “ Such a machine must be a hollow globe of copper or other suitable metal, wrought extremely thin in order to have it as light as possible. It must then be filled with aetherial air or liquid fire and launched from some elevated point into the atmosphere, when it will float like a vessel on water”. It is still very early.

In 1670 Francesco de Lana fears the Creator, his idea will have to wait another hundred years before the brothers Montgolfier devise the first balloon inflated with hot air from the furnace underneath to ascend the earth in 1783.

David does not stand behind. As a true aviator he also constructs his own aeroplane. It is a fragile thing, that much I can say. Its destiny though is not to fly to Australia, and this destiny is shared by few others aircrafts during all the long years of preparation for this journey.

A big dream. This is how it appears to me. But for me it is different. I have no big dreams. I would say my dreams are almost small. I dream of the haven of stillness, my own house of the future bathed in autumn light. The swing of consolatory jazz, tangy kisses tasting unspoken words of the day, red wine and vibrant debates of the past and the present. On the paper I can be an adventurer – the nature of my choice is study though, moreover learning of the past and that reflects exactly who I am.

cont.

***

    We met on the train. I have no time to go out and meet men. Perhaps it is a bad choice when you are thirty-three but I am a student again. If there is a university in the world that gives you a once in a lifetime opportunity, it is Oxford. For me it is archaeology. I have studied a variety of things in my life, business and law, European Union and Spanish. I was satisfied but I wasn’t happy. Since I can remember I had my own world. The Greeks mixed with the Romans and I don’t know how I always knew what Chiton and Chalmys[1] were. But the time comes when you will try to shape it as

everyone else. I didn’t succeed. I’ve watched too many happy movies. I know what life is not about. But my ambition is even bigger than that. I have incredibly important ancestors, like Nestor[2], like Alexander[3]. The first calls for wisdom. Wisdom is what you know about yourself, your history. The latter demands a conquest of some kind. He is a King.    

It is a long way between Newcastle and Oxford, even longer between Poland and Great Britain. He comes to visit me in Oxford, stays one evening and the following morning. The moment he leaves I know it is Him. The most ridiculous and absurd knowledge a human being can experience. I want this knowledge to be taken away from me, I am not comfortable with it. But my pledge is foolish. It is a subtle moment when love is born out of total nothingness. I have no power over it, no control. I do not even give it a name. Like a newborn baby it will have to wait to acquire a proper name. Later, I reflect and contemplate but the meaning and the reason eludes me. There is no meaning and there is no reason. This has been communicated to me from such inner levels that I can hardly hear it.

I want to know about him. But it is difficult. He escapes me all the time. I cannot state in five points what it is that attracts me to him. Perhaps when he says that double ‘but’…, and his fingers. When we embark on this journey we still will not know each other that well. No, I would say we don’t know each other at all. It is a test, I think. A test in which we do not test each other. It is a destiny that tests us, our encounter, our maturity, our lasting, our shaping as human beings and our cooperation.  And yet I cannot exactly grasp its meaning. 

I feel that this trip, this journey will be completed for some strange reason. Or perhaps I am delusional. What I do not know is whether we will come out of it as winners, proud. Or whether we will do it at whatever cost, putting at sacrifice what we have yet to become.

---

 1 The primary garment of Ancient Greek clothing was the Chiton, an all-over body garment made from a large rectangle of cloth wrapped once around the body from right side to right side. This garment was then pinned at the shoulders and tied at the waist or hips, and draped in hanging folds about the body. A smaller rectangle worn over one shoulder by travellers and young men was called a Chalmys.

[2] Nestor in Greek mythology, the king of Pylos famed for his wisdom.

[3] Alexander III of Macedon, known as Alexander the Great created one of the largest empires in ancient history.

the journey begins

                                                         1

        He had a vision.  He had a dream to fly an aeroplane to Australia. A light aircraft. He had a dream……….

It is a mystery. This country, this island, these people, always searching for a challenge. The Englishman and the Empire. He is no ordinary man, his is no ordinary plane.

I believe nothing happens without a reason and it is not a New Age viewpoint. I know it inside me. I always did. David wanted to fly himself to Australia since he can remember. The journey has a symbolic meaning for an aviator. He did try before. He didn’t succeed. Now when we found each other somehow I know it will be possible.

On the first of November, the very day we begin our journey no one reflects on the fact that today we will follow the trail of the Red Empire, perhaps until the end, until the Terra Incognita.

Somehow I, between the packing of our things, the hectic conversations with his parents, our first disagreement that brings me to tears, between all these things I realize that it is not going to be a romantic voyage in the 1930’s style, with us flying in impeccable, tailor-made suits to Australia.

He never asks me if I like flying, he takes it for granted. I am deadly afraid of flying. The Aegean ships take me from place to place, from island to island. This is the way I travel. I consider it natural, at a pace which harmonizes the one of my body. But the Aegean is not here today or rather I am not there. I am in Britain. And from here I am going to risk my life. Why? Everyone asks me. Why? I know why. I am in love.

The plane. The first thing you notice is the colour, a light shade of blue. It is a Gardan Horizon, made exactly forty years ago. I have been a witness to putting this plane back together during the last week. It seems too diminutive, too vulnerable, too weak. Now, this requires from me an extraordinary state of faith. I will find it. We will fly to Australia.

There are three types of Gardan Horizon, almost nobody knows of them, not even the aviators. Only two hundred of them were made, in France designed by Yves Gardan. David found her two years ago, it is a GY 80. She has a name, the Starmist Clipper but she will be known across the Red Empire as G-ATGY (Golf Alfa Tango Golf Yankee), her registration, her call sign.   

Flying. Everyone who flies knows that flying is not really about flying. It is about superhuman concentration, it is about nerves of steel, it is about self-control and it is about absolute denial of death. David possesses all of these characteristics. He is all of them. Perhaps because of his job, perhaps he was born like that. 

If I am allowed to reflect on the nature of this undertaking, in a one-engined aeroplane, of forty years old, with a self-installed fuel tank on the back seat, I have many thoughts.

Are we injudicious? Are we naïve? I don’t ask these questions. I am these questions. I have been known for years for questioning the ordinary life, for searching. I finally found my place. But David, he is a sober doctor. Perhaps not. You cannot be mistaken if you look into his eyes. I see a boy. And I know, I am not even that important for there is this plane, there is a voyage of childhood dreams.  

There is a dream dreamed for years, it is a mission. How many before him, his countrymen, lead by the inner fire and a vision left everything to embark on a conquest of the unknown. So now he comes, in a straight line with all the explorers, adventurers and brawlers, ready to build his own empire.........