On April the 20th, 2008, Padre Adelir Antonio de Carli took off from the town of Paranagua in a chair attached to a thousand helium balloons. The lower half of his body was found in the Atlantic two months later.https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/onearth/1024/thumbnail.jp

Magennis, Nikki

Digital Commons @ Butler University

Butler UniversityDigital Commons @ Butler UniversityOn Earth As It Is1-1-2011Lighter Than AirNikki MagennisFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/onearthPart of the Creative Writing Commons, and the Religion CommonsThis Book is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Butler University. It has been accepted for inclusion in On Earth As It Is byan authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Butler University. For more information, please contact fgaede@butler.edu.Recommended CitationMagennis, Nikki, "Lighter Than Air" (2011). On Earth As It Is. Book 7.http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/onearth/7HOMEABOUTAUTHORSCONTACTon earth as it isprayer as story, story as prayer   photo by matthew simmons Lighter Than AirNikki MagennisOn April the 20th, 2008, Padre Adelir Antonio de Carli took off from the town of Paranaguain a chair attached to a thousand helium balloons. The lower half of his body was found in theAtlantic two months later. I am not a fool. Despite what you think. I have been foolish, yes, but it’s not the same thing. You’lllaugh at me, I know, but that’s only because people are afraid to believe in something.I listen to the world around me. This is what I can hear:I think the foil under my clothes is making many very small noises – at first I thought it was applause,then the sound of an old man, laughing hard enough to choke. It comes and goes.Every so often a balloon bursts. It’s like the sound of a gunshot far away, a lone soldier firing atrandom into a crowd.The biggest noise, the most constant, is the wind. It batters my face. For a long time it made meangry. It kept pushing me further from where I was supposed to be. Eventually I felt as thoughsomeone held me with very cold hands. As I look down at my feet, faraway and hanging in mid-air, I would like to tell you that I am notafraid.I think of the men who drive the trucks, their journeys, thousands of miles long, where rain hasdisintegrated the red mud roads and there is no radio signal. Our Lady of the Way is the only onewho might hear their prayers, the saints and the angels the only ones who might help a man who findshimself out there, lost and alone. I wish them to find somewhere quiet and cool, a place where theroad does not stop or come to an end, but changes, becomes a kind of home, perhaps.I would have liked to travel with my own altar in the back of a solid, six-wheeled truck. To themountains, gas stations, the midnight stops. I would have spoken to the vagrants who live betweenplaces, and who are forced to feed on the kindness of strangers. I picture myself driving through thenight with the Virgin on the dashboard, a rosary hanging from the sun shade, the cross swinging backand forth, the road unravelling in front of me. I could drive forever.God, bless us travellers who have forgotten the way home.I have questions. Forgive me. I want to know how long. Like a child going to visit family he nolonger remembers. I watch the surface of the sea, blue for so long, broken into monochrome by thechop of the waves. In these endless flickering variations, I believe I can see the true texture of life. Itry not to let my pride weigh me down.I have been angry with you, Father. I can pass my hand through you, it seems. There are no strings.Science has failed me. I can rely only on the unknown.How much do I have? Years passed. I don’t recognise myself. My mother is a stranger. Her eyesgrew paler as she got older, the way wet stones on the edge of a riverbed grow dry in the sun. Shewore black for twenty years although you weren’t dead. I dug up my old family, the graves wereempty.I am still cold. The stars are around me. Above me the sea is vast and silent.I understand, father. I asked you as a child. I knew then, from your silent voice, what you required. Iwent to the church, I asked for little, I worked hard for you. I counted and counted beads until thenumbers were meaningless. It was not enough, I know that. Joseph of Cupertino be with me. I imagine the monks’ faces as you levitated in front of them. Youwere hated. They sent you away. Yet the human heart rises, Father, doesn’t it?As I sit here the scent of my own dirt reaches me. I cannot run from it. I must sit with the dirt in mylap, drenching my foil suit, turning cold on my skin. It smells almost sweet.I remember the coffee Idrank yesterday morning. Was it yesterday? Years ago, when I was walking the earth, with theblood running down my palms, with tears washing my face. I am singing, Father.Can you hear me? Are you in the radio?When I stood and gave service, I used to shake. Not with belief, but with fear. I am not a braveman. I am not strong.I confess to Pride. I wanted the TV news, the Guinness Book of Records. To be famous, for myown proof.I wish to make you a proposition, Father.I will leave one half of me behind. The legs that walked the earth, the lower half of my body, the partwith the dirt, I will leave it behind. Life can take my guts. The fish can eat them. I cannot be a banditforever.The other half, I leave for you. My arms, so that I can embrace you. My face, so that I can lay mycheek against yours. I want to touch you, God. I want to taste you and inhale you.What are you?Are you gathering for me? Will you answer me?I am high enough for the angels to take me.Would I dare to pray, to ask for this? I would have to believe that I deserved it. That your handwould sweep down, perhaps in the form of a helicopter or an Easterly wind, perhaps as a glowingcloud, and scoop me from danger.What of the others? The desperate kids who sleep under bridges? Should I be saved if they are not?The prostitutes, those slow-eyed women, the weariness that weighed across their shoulders. Theywould circle at the truck stops, like scavenger birds with their eyes painted on, rocking back andforth on their high heels. Sometimes I would see the drivers torn between the two. They would standin front of the chapel, it’s true, they would cross themselves and stare at the Virgin, but all the samethey couldn’t help their eyes from sliding into the roadside, where the women waited.And in the dusty purple evenings, sometimes even I would find myself drifting with a heart that wasnot entirely pure, Father.We are such creatures of desire. We are so hungry. It exhausts me. The rage of the policeman, theneed of the beggar, the pain of the mother with a sick child. To be constantly asking for something.So I will not ask for anything from you, father. I shall let the winds take me. The sea is close now; itskims under me like a rushing screen. In the chopped surface I can see shattered pictures. It is myeyes, I’m sure. I can see the kitchen in which I grew up. I can smell the sage from the window. Theface of our Lady.The water swirls. I can see his brown dry skinned hands, the glint of a gold ring. The turquoise of thehospital wall, the white sheets. It is running past me more, now Father, I can’t tell if I am above or below the water. I am cold and Iam burning. It is so deep it is blinding me, so slow I can’t keep up. Take what you will of me. I offeryou my travelling feet, my guts, and my stomach. I can’t feel my hands anymore, but you can havethem too. I can taste salt, Father. It tastes so good. I am thirsty. It is what I need, and there is no endof it. Nikki Magennis is an author and artist. She lives in Scotland with her partner and young son, and writesdirty books and poetry to ensure uncomfortable pauses in dinner party conversation. She was raisedagnostically - which makes the process sound grander than it was - and is now approaching Buddhismhaphazardly, apologetically and hopefully. Her website is HERE.Previous--->   Copyright ? 2010 by On Earth As It Is.

Lighter Than Air

http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=onearth

Lighter Than Air

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Digital Commons @ Butler University