“Okay gang, time to climb into the basket,” Neil called out to the anxious group that was obviously ready to board.

The five lined up as Neil guided them.  “Climb over the side using the footholds at each end of the basket.  Each of you, take a single compartment and buckle yourselves into the seat.”

“Veronica, you’re first and then Dylan. You’ll take the two compartments to my left,” Neil said with a nod.

“Sister Mary Agnes and Oscar, you’ll take the two compartments to my right, and Delbert, you’ll share the center section with me,” he instructed.  The middle compartment was long and reached from one side of the rectangular gondola to the other, and was occupied in the center by the upright fuel cylinders and the burners.  To each side of the cylinders and burners was a seat against the outside walls of the gondola.

The five climbed on board, taking their respective seats and buckling in as instructed.  Soon the ground crew released the tether ropes and the balloon began to slowly rise upward to the whoosh of the burners as Neil turned the valve to release more gas that fed the flames.  The higher the flame, the faster the balloon rose, until soon they were high above the group standing beneath them on the ground.

Oscar felt it peculiar at first that the only sounds were the muffled voices of those on the ground and the whooshing of the burner’s flame.  It was quiet actually; there was a complete sense of peace as the balloon drifted upward.  By now a scarlet red, crescent was peeking its way over the mountain ridge to their east, a small sliver of the sun barely lighting the sky with brilliant hues of pale red and orange as the orb of Sol rose to kiss the streaks of clouds.

“It’s absolutely breath taking,” Sister Mary Agnes exclaimed, speaking into the silence of the cool morning air as she watched the sun’s rays that had begun falling onto the earth and spreading out below.

“Wow, take a look at that,” Dylan breathed the words as he hung nervously onto the side of the gondola with a white knuckled grip as the sun climbed higher and higher as the balloon rose.

The terrain beneath them took on a totally different aspect as the balloon drifted over the fields; the fields that appeared as though a multi-colored patchwork of quilted squares.  The roads and highways took on the resemblance of ribbons laced with a red and white glow from headlights and taillights, weaving and flowing in motion across the landscape below. The weather had turned cool over the past nights, just as Neil hoped.  The trees appeared like dots on the surface beneath them, now appearing as though small colorful pillars, puffballs, and mushrooms, taking on the brilliant hues of autumn.

The balloon and its occupants drifted slowly and silently across the landscape with the only sounds being that of rhythmic whooshes from the burners.  The sun climbed higher in the sky, now leaving a darkening shadow of the balloon on the ground beneath them.

When they approached the outer edges of town, Neil turned up the flames of the burner.  The balloon hesitated only momentarily before responding to the increased heat flowing up through the opening in the Nomex skirt, thereby boosting them higher in order to catch the wind currents that would take them up and over the mountain ridge to their east.  Everyone on board remained in silent awe, watching the familiar, yet unfamiliar world drifting by in slow motion beneath them.

“If you’ll look to our right as we approach Mt. Wilson, you’ll see the fish hatchery just at the mouth of the canyon we’ll be traveling over,” Neil explained, his voice breaking through the surreal silence.

Everyone’s gaze traveled to the shining, narrow, blue rectangles that comprised the tanks of the hatchery.  The ponds glistened in the sun like misplaced bits of the sky.  A gentle breeze played at their cheeks as the balloon rose even higher.  Advancing over the crest of the ridge, they glimpsed images of sparse fir trees clinging to the steep face of the mountain resembling green sentinels decked out in pointed, fringed hats, their arms stretched outward.

An hour and forty-five minutes had passed since they departed the field, but no one aboard the basket was aware so much time had slipped by.  The balloon rose higher with each burst of the burners’ torch, catching air currents over the ridge as Neil expected.

At that point, a twinge of panic gripped Dylan’s midsection and crept up to form a lump in his throat.  He fought the urge to give in to the sense of terror while refraining from glancing over the side of the balloon at the earth’s surface that was now growing farther and farther away.  The cold, gray, rock face of the mountain was growing closer, but he focused instead on one, lone, dead fir tree clinging to the rock precipice like a scarecrow, like a ridged, pale ghost of its former self.

“However did I let myself get talked into this?” he thought.

The balloon climbed and the basket holding them tipped slightly as Neil shifted his weight from one side of his compartment to the other in order to look over the side and judge their distance from the rock face.  Attending to the flame, he brought the balloon higher into the stronger air currents above.

“How do you steer this thing,” Dylan asked in a voice shakier than he intended while he gripped the side of the gondola.  Surely there was some way Neil was directing the craft in the direction they intended to go, but for the life of him, he hadn’t seen anything resembling a steering mechanism; there was no rudder, no wheel, no sail to turn into the wind.

“Even a blimp has steerage of some sort,” he thought to himself.

“You don’t steer a balloon,” Neil replied matter of fact while turning up the burner for another burst of heated air directed into the envelope, elevating the balloon into the higher reaches of the air currents and clearing the ledges that were protruding from the mountain’s face.

“You can only go up, or down, you rely on the air currents to take you where you want to go from there.”  Neil turned the burner up full force, at which point the apparatus responded with a loud whoosh.  Within thirty seconds, the super heated air expelled from the burners rose up through the envelope’s skirt and the balloon rose dramatically, catching the air current and traveling higher, swaying the basket gently in the process.  At that point Dylan was glad there wasn’t time to catch that cup of coffee, much less breakfast; it was inevitable a breakfast would not have stuck with him at that point; his stomach was lurching and churning like a taffy puller set on high speed. The thought of the wind currents being the only one in control of their destination, of where the balloon took them, didn’t help matters much.

“The Nomex skirt allows super heated air to rise into the balloon, and we all know that hot air rises,” Neil explained.  “There are three parts to the balloon, the bottom is called the skirt, the middle is the envelope, and the top of the balloon is called the Hyperlast,” Neil informed him, trying to ease Dylan’s obvious sense of nervousness.

Sister Mary Agnes glanced in Dylan’s direction, and realizing his apprehension, she deemed it time to distract him.

“Isn’t this the most spectacular view?” She leaned slightly and peered over the side of the gondola to gaze at the world growing more distant below.

Dylan sat back and closed his eyes for a second, then glanced in the direction of the Sister’s gaze, swallowing his apprehension with a gulp.

“Look at the color of the maple trees lining the side of the canyon.”  She pointed with a satisfied smile growing wider across her slim face.  She was convinced that the beauty she beheld was indeed the works of God.

“It’s beautiful to say the least.” Delbert glanced with awe toward the inspiring scene with the eye of a man never having seen such natural beauty first hand.  At that point, he couldn’t understand why he had allowed himself to become so isolated from the world that existed outside his small cubical sufficing as an office.

“This all imparts a sense of unreality, like a movie.” He went on, drinking in the world that was drifting silently by below and around him.  It felt as though he was watching a movie filmed in a somewhat surreal slow motion, a documentary maybe, only better, with colors and forms slowly taking shape and flowing gently by.

“It does feel a little like a movie, doesn’t it?” Veronica’s tone was so low that it was almost as though she was speaking to herself.  She was relaxed for the first time in months and it felt unfamiliar.  She’d been keyed up and anxious for so long, waiting for that major break in her career.  She hadn’t realized the effect it had on her until that moment; she could almost feel the taunt nerves un-jangling.

“Libby would truly love this,” Oscar said in a wistful voice, “she always loved these mountains.  Fall was her favorite season, outside of spring.  She loved her flowers, but she loved the fall colors as well.”  He tenderly caressed the wooden box resting on his knees before he glanced down to trace his fingers along the carved roses and raised letters of her name, “Libby Rene Metford.”   He’d carved her name fondly himself into the top; the box was Libby’s jewelry box.  He’d carved the box for her as a gift for their fiftieth wedding anniversary with every ounce of his love some twenty years ago.  Libby cherished it; therefore, it was his choice to place her ashes there.

As he trailed his fingers along the engraved details, he could almost feel the warmth of her emanating from the soft grains of cherry wood before he stilled the caress and placed the palm of his hand in the center of the lid and glanced out at the tree lined mountain ridge now flowing by some distance below.

Sister Mary Agnes’ fingers caressed her rosary as she cast a glance toward Oscar, her eyes projecting compassionate warmth.

“Libby is your wife?” she asked.

“Yes.” Oscar glanced across his compartment toward the Sister.

“She passed away some months ago.  I’m bringing her to the mountains with me; to visit the places she loved most again.”  He smiled, absentmindedly caressing the box.

Sister Mary Agnes merely smiled, continuing to softly finger the beads of her rosary; there was no need for words; no need for a sermon, she conceded.

They were drifting silently over thick stands of fir and quaking yellow aspens now, within the widened confines of a canyon flecked with miscellaneous flame orange dashes of mountain ash and red splashes of maple winding their way up the ravines along the canyon walls.  No one spoke as the group watched the forest within the canyon slowly flowing by beneath them.

Soon the basket began to drift nearer the ground as Neil pulled the cord controlling the parachute valve of the balloon, releasing hot air to diminish the balloon’s buoyancy, encouraging their descent.  The basket glided near the treetops now, seeming to travel still slower as they cleared a stand of aspens bordering a long, beautifully green meadow dotted with colorful clusters of various trees all dressed in their autumn regalia.

Dylan had seemingly conquered his terror now.  He glanced over the side of the basket with the realization that the ground was coming up quickly to meet them.

“Okay everyone, I hope you’re all buckled in.”  Neil glanced over his shoulder toward the group as he spoke.

“Hold onto the sides of the gondola and brace yourselves as we come in for our landing.  Don’t be alarmed because the basket will bounce a few times at a forty-five degree angle before we finally come to rest and land upright.”

Come along with five strangers who become unlikely friends during their harrowing adventure in the book Libby's Ashes.  Available for sale on Amazon.