FICTION: Mothership

Penny does not expect to hear the roar of an invisible dragon on the path on the edge of a potato field. It takes a moment for her to think to look up.

The hot air balloon passing above her head is too low and too large. Its white sphere stands out sharply against dense black clouds.

Should it even be in the air on a day like this, with a gale blowing up and rain beginning to spot the cracked soil? Penny misjudged the weather for her walk but is dressed for it in waterproof trousers and hooded jacket. Perhaps the pilot of the balloon also misread or ignored the weather forecast. Or has a deathwish.

The wicker basket beneath the balloon is only a few metres above her head. She stops and waits for it to go by, and to progress beyond the line of red-studded bramble bushes ahead. She knows very little about balloons but understands that they have little control over their direction, being at the mercy of layers of wind at different altitudes. She hopes this one, this colossal pearlescent object, will avoid the fourteenth century tower of St. Leonard’s Church which lies a mile or so ahead.

As the balloon moves ahead she expects to see its pilot come into view above the edge of the basket. This does not happen, though someone must be there to trigger the burner, which turns the pearl orange for a second. The balloon does not rise.

In fact, even as the wind whips at the synthetic fabric of her waterproofs and pulls strands of her dark hair across her face, the balloon seems to slow. Then it stops altogether, fixing itself in the air, as if a pause button has been pressed. The hawthornes to Penny’s left are shaken by the growing gale and lurch forward. A torn cement sack tumbles across the field to her right, a tangle of white, brown and blue. But the balloon does not move, at least not forward, because, yes, like an elevator, it is descending gently.

The basket rolls slightly on contact with the pale brown earth, rights itself, settles flat. The structure of the balloon sits solidly, neither sagging nor swaying.

Penny takes a few steps and calls out in her high, nasal voice: ‘Hello? Is everything okay? Do you need help?’ She can barely hear herself and knows that her words have been lost.

The balloon waits.

Rain comes harder, tearing across her rucksack and back. She moves instinctively towards the balloon hoping it might offer shelter, skipping awkwardly over ruts in the ground, stumbling in her sturdy boots.

Close by, the balloon has the bulk of an office block. Its perfect white shell throws out a soft internal light, as if the sun itself has fallen, weakened, from the sky.

The burner exhales flame and it sounds like a weary sigh, or an exhortation. Penny is overcome with a sense that to ignore it would be rude, or hostile. The rain lashes her forward as she hurries to the basket, throws her rucksack over the worn leather of the rim, and climbs in after it.

The basket is empty. There is no pilot, no flask of hot tea, no warm blanket. Here, though, the wind is diminished, and the rain cannot reach. She feels like a child in the arms of a great mother.

Flames rise above her head. Mother sighs. The balloon begins to rise.