LJ Idol // Week 16 // Open Topic
The Flyaways
A short and peculiar narrative.
Music: The Queen by Taylor Hayward.
On the 17th of June 1924, four children escaped from a London orphanage in a home-made hot air balloon.
Three days later, the balloon was discovered empty and abandoned in the Forest of Dean: no trace of the children was found.
The tale of the Flyaways (as they became known) gradually passed into memory and a vague urban myth. After seven years they were declared dead. In accordance with the laws of this modern age, they no longer existed. They were forgotten by everybody, except in one small village not far from where the balloon had been found. For ten years food and livestock mysteriously vanished from the villagers' homes.
Until, some ten years after the escape from London, a young man walked out of the forest in broad daylight. In his arms he held a newborn child: the first of the Abenhall Babies. To the first man he met, he spoke only four words:
"We are not ghosts."
He handed over the baby and returned to the forest.
And for one whole year the woods were silent.
Then, on the 24th of February 1935, the man appeared in Abenhall once again, and again he brought a newborn child. To the first man he saw, he said these words:
"This is not where we belong."
So it went on, and with the passing of the years the population of Abenhall grew steadily larger. Until, in 1948, the man from the woods did not appear, and paint was daubed onto the side of the church.
"We are not ghosts; this is not where we belong. We can fly."
After that, the woods were silent.
A short and peculiar narrative.
Music: The Queen by Taylor Hayward.
On the 17th of June 1924, four children escaped from a London orphanage in a home-made hot air balloon.
Three days later, the balloon was discovered empty and abandoned in the Forest of Dean: no trace of the children was found.
The tale of the Flyaways (as they became known) gradually passed into memory and a vague urban myth. After seven years they were declared dead. In accordance with the laws of this modern age, they no longer existed. They were forgotten by everybody, except in one small village not far from where the balloon had been found. For ten years food and livestock mysteriously vanished from the villagers' homes.
Until, some ten years after the escape from London, a young man walked out of the forest in broad daylight. In his arms he held a newborn child: the first of the Abenhall Babies. To the first man he met, he spoke only four words:
"We are not ghosts."
He handed over the baby and returned to the forest.
And for one whole year the woods were silent.
Then, on the 24th of February 1935, the man appeared in Abenhall once again, and again he brought a newborn child. To the first man he saw, he said these words:
"This is not where we belong."
So it went on, and with the passing of the years the population of Abenhall grew steadily larger. Until, in 1948, the man from the woods did not appear, and paint was daubed onto the side of the church.
"We are not ghosts; this is not where we belong. We can fly."
After that, the woods were silent.