Our Laputa

 We had done it and it was amazing.  We were the private owners of a floating island.  The island was all made from natural materials and we used big industrial sized balloons to keep it afloat.  We had placed it in a part of the sky not used for air travel and in our lounge we looked down on the world.  It had been our dream, ever since we had talked about floating properties in that bar in Budapest, young and mad, we didn’t even think we would remain friends let alone achieve what we had dreamt.  Land was becoming scarce as we looked to own our own place and the alternatives were lacking.  What was needed, I said, was houses in the sky or on the ocean, my friend agreed and we talked of ways of building and keeping such a house afloat.  We had various schemes but we weren’t serious about it.  It was only later when I thought about ways of earning money and it was only the desperation that made such a mad idea seem possible.   

  It was long hard work but we should see our rewards soon enough when, after the experiment had gone to plan, we then start putting the air-houses on the market.  So far everything was going OK and the fact of being up so air with such stability made me giddy.  We took another look down below and then up to the edge of the atmosphere or so we imagined.  In some ways it would be nice to keep this bit of sky all to ourselves and not share it with anyone, but we had hungry bellies and the air wasn’t going to feed us.  For all our Utopian ideas we still hadn’t found a way around money, but we tried to do without too much.   

  Our idea, we thought, could revolutionise transport and the nature of the relationship between us and the world.  People would travel up to the island, which would in time be connected to a vast network of stations floating around the atmosphere, where they could get from one country to another without flying, almost by walking.  There would be in my new world three levels: the earth level, the underwater level and the sky level and people would be moving about between the three, yes we will be living underwater too.  This way overpopulation would not be the same burden as it is today.  We would have a few more years to come.  Meanwhile we were keeping this secret.  Only a few people, the ones who made it, know but if this experiment becomes a success than soon everyone will know about it.  I liked the idea of becoming some sort of sky pirate, like in the children's books I used to read.  That must have been where I got the idea from.  We would have to improve predicting the weather and think about how exactly to deal with the wind but I see no reason why it could not work.  

   Country and nationality could become a meaningless thing to one born in the sky and I look forward to that day when I see the face of a beautiful sky baby born to sky tribes.  Concocting this island expresses my desire to be a father, but then does one really create a child or is it just the inspiration of the womb?