Babayaga

Tumbling down toward the street from Billy and Dottie’s apartment, Vidot realized that his whole life would not, as the cliché put it, flash before his eyes. In fact, he had abundant time for regrets, second thoughts, and even philosophical ruminations, for, thanks to the air pressure and the updraft, what would have been a plunge of mere seconds for a heavier mortal man took substantially longer for a falling flea: it was as if he had tumbled off a tall cliff perched above a kilometers-deep canyon and it would now take considerable time for him to cover the vast distance before he reached the bottom. So, as he fell, he could contemplate all the many lapses in judgment that had brought him to this grim and unfortunate end.

Then, unexpectedly, a brisk breeze picked up from below. This gentle but firm wind, buffeting off the side of the building, completely ceased his descent and began forcing him up and aloft. In fact, as it quickly billowed him out over the rooftop, he found himself at an altitude of such atmospheric activity that it quickly became evident that he would not be returning to earth anytime soon. In surprising bursts and swirling currents, curious eddies, and elliptical wafts, he proceeded to spin and sail up across the high terraces, tiles, and chimneys of Paris, his soul now laughing in a nervous ecstasy of relief as he sailed over the spires of churches and soared past garret windows and bright tin peaks. In absolute amazement, he glided over the spiderwebbed alleyways of the Marais and then out past the Hôtel de Ville. Cars and pedestrians clogged the streets beneath him. He was high up now, gazing across to where Montmartre itself gazed out over the city. He was swept along in the wind, admiring the twin steeples of Notre-Dame as he passed, along with the dogged, devilish gargoyles of St. Jacques.

Relaxing in his good fortune, he began to figure out how to surf the wind’s current. By twisting, turning, and balling himself up while extending his long legs out into the air, he found a way to achieve some slight control. Aiming himself down the length of the Avenue Montaigne, he rode a buffeting gust and was shot clear across the river. Then, gleefully aiming himself again, he floated between the iron latticework of the Eiffel Tower. He soared out, up along Haussmann’s grand boulevards all the way to Montparnasse. There the spinning wind’s pressure changed and took him swooping down so that he found himself dancing along only meters above the black and gray hats of a small crowd of people. The breeze sped up again, and as he sailed over the street he caught a glimpse of a pretty blond girl selling newspapers, followed by a man pushing a movie camera in a baby carriage. What a marvelous city, he thought, captivating and mesmerizing even in its most pedestrian moments, those scenes composed of singular beauty that were almost camouflaged and lost amid its myriad wonders.

The gusting wind now shifted direction as it shot him up once more, blowing him back hundreds of meters above the Champ de Mars to where a lonely red balloon floated by. The sight reminded him of those first heroes of flight, his countrymen, who, long before the airplane, rose from crowded and cheering Parisian courtyards in their gilded and satin hot-air palaces. Filled with delight, and flying now back over the river, he passed the Tuileries. He tossed and turned in the cool breeze. He was beginning to think he could happily spend days up above Paris, riding high and repeatedly crisscrossing the Seine, a tiny observing angel keeping a keen, watchful eye on his fair city and its sweet and sinful inhabitants, when suddenly, as he was passing over the courtyard of the grand Hôtel de Crillon, the capricious winds absolutely died and Vidot found himself falling once again, straight down until he landed smack in the middle of an overflowing garbage can.

Stunned, quite happy to be alive, and, as far as he could tell, miraculously uninjured, Vidot rousted himself up from the piled debris and hopped out onto the base of a nearby drainpipe. He had barely time to catch his breath before he saw a large, lumbering shadow passing by, and, without any hesitation, he leapt onto it, wholly intent on resuming the journey to the station he had been pursuing before he was waylaid by Billy and Dottie.