The Fifth Suit: Suited, Down to the Ground
I don't know why it should be this way - I was NOT and then I WAS. I gather that this isn't uncommon in the world of waking things, to be dimly aware in some distant way of something other than one's self, beyond one's self. And then the distance is lessened by something - a sound, a touch, a color, a smell . . . I doubt it could be explained to me, if anyone or anything might think to explain it. It is the extension of the self, a true recognition that one exists in a world with others, whether or not one is permitted to communicate with them.
Perhaps commune would be a more proper word, and I should be careful of words, since those are what I've chosen to use - for, truly, had I tried to explain this in wind speeds and longitude, you would not understand in the very least. It was not so long ago that I would have been limited to that form of expression. Then again, I was not aware at that time.
I was NOT.
This word 'time' . . . a passage of distance, a measure of movement. It was not as if I WAS in a flash of consciousness - I suspect I could determine the exact moment and occasion of being if this were so. No, it was a passage, a distance.
There were others here once, vague shadows. The darkest of them was the Baron and this I know because he signed his appellation on many occasions, his pen scratching on paper into the wood of my table, although he would kindly use a blotter when possible. Still, he was insubstantial to me, part of the 'Other' that was NOT me.
It was with Passepartout that I first became aware. I grew to understand, over time - that odd word - that he served the Baron, but in my arrogance became aware of him only as serving me. He SPOKE to me.
Does that seem odd to you?
It did not seem so to me, not after I WAS. I do not remember his first words or first whispers, but they were light upon me, like the polishing rag he used upon my brass fittings, or the blacking brush upon the hard and heavy wrought iron. That the words gradually attained sense to me, that I knew them to apply to me, was part of my becoming. If one must pick a precise location for the start of the journey, his first words must have been the beginning of the time I WAS - but I do not count them so, because I cannot truly remember.
And such words! I was called, "my darling," and "beautiful," and "loveliest of balloonships" - I quite liked that one - and so many other things. When my rudders would not turn against the wind, I was scolded gently, but more often pleaded with. "Do this for Passepartout," he would say, "to be giving me a little favor, do this?"
I must have responded to his voice even before I fully WAS, for there are vague memories of pats and brief caresses and "Thank you, darling airyships."
Did I mention that I have memories? Those early ones are like low-altitude mists - if I concentrate too hard upon them, they lift me up and far away into clearer skies and more vivid recollections . . . but I'm always aware that they're down below me, beyond my reach. At the time, I drifted among those mists quite happily, for what did I, an airyship, know of NOT or WAS? It was . . . nice.
Yes, that is how it should be said. Nice.
Of the Baron, I was not aware apart from a presence - there or not there, it was all the same to me. When Passepartout would leave, it was as if the bolts had been removed from the starboard gondola strut. I was bereft and endangered, rudderless and fearful that I might go astray, even when lines securely locked me to the Other hard place and I didn't soar aloft.
Have I mentioned the soaring? Oh, that is so much the very best part of it! When I am so far above the Other and my lines trail free and the weather is not filled with bright light flashes or rumbles that shake my skin or thick with soft or hard water . . . that is soaring. To be above the birds - I am aware of them now and find them the part of the Other that sometimes makes me wish I was NOT - and in the warmth of that thing that is higher even than I can fly . . . Aaaaah.
The Baron was or was not and it did not matter much to me. Then the Baron was not and something else WAS.
SOMEONE else WAS.
"Let's see what she can do."
His first words. Not addressed to me, but to Passepartout, yet these are the words that took him from NOT and made him WAS.
She. I was a 'she.'
I did not know what 'she' was, but it sounded . . . nice. And there was something different about this one being WAS. Passepartout polished my brass, oiled my fans, adjusted my flanges, washed my canvas and his touch was always expert - I felt much better afterwards - but he served me. Because he did such a nice job and made me feel better, I was always happy to do as he asked if it were possible, particularly where the rudder was concerned.
With this SOMEONE, this Phileas - he took my Passepartout from me. He lubricated himself and would spill it on my flooring when I shook my undercarriage in disapproval. He would have his canvas heated and flattened before my canvas. He left fingerprints on my brass.
On my BRASS!
I was not disposed toward him in the least. I considered trying to shake him off the upper bridge, but thought that Passepartout might object. Passepartout seemed to bustle more since the Baron had left and this SOMEONE, this Phileas, WAS. And Passepartout was always careful to wipe the fingerprints from my brass, sometimes several times a day.
I decided that this Phileas, though he WAS, would soon go as the Baron had gone. Then I would be left with Passepartout and we would soar.
So I thought until one evening, when the warmth was fading and the dark coldness was starting to settle around my ballast. Phileas was standing on the observation deck, his hands upon my rail - leaving fingermarks, ALWAYS leaving fingermarks, this one - looking out onto the Other, as someones do. And he said it.
IT.
"Mine."
Passepartout had called me 'my' before. And, I must confess, I thought of him - and still think of him - as 'my' Passepartout. But when Phileas said, "Mine," such a shudder went through me, stem to stern, that he looked around in alarm. He even called Passepartout.
And while they rooted around my flanges, poked at my gears, checked my bearings, and reset my lines, the hum of that word continued to run through me.
Mine.
I did not like Rebecca.
Not at first. Not when Phileas called her "MY cousin," and Passepartout scurried to get her tea and left a mark on my floor, which he did not wipe away quickly. Oh, she praised me and called me, 'beautiful, ' and 'comfortable,' and 'remarkable machine.' She did not leave fingerprints on my brass. She did not scuff my decks.
She's dark, dark the way Phileas can be when he spills his lubricant on my decks. But her darkness is below the canvas, while Phileas has his darkness painted on the surface. She pulls my lines a lot - I don't like that. And she jumps on my canvas and hangs off me - I've thought to release the rope from the pulley and let her fall.
But Phileas watches her. Phileas doesn't wear the darkness on his canvas when she is aboard. Phileas doesn't call her, "Mine."
Since then Rebecca has been kind to me - she climbed up on my canvas to patch me during the flashing sky lights when the hard Other came too close and wanted to hurt me. There are smells she brings with her that remind me of soaring even when I am tied to the hard Other and cannot lift away.
I will let him keep her.
Until Phileas calls her "Mine."
Jules.
Jules runs up and down my staircase with a tread like a hammer. He leaves more fingerprints on my brass than Phileas - which I would not have believed was possible. And he has IDEAS.
I should correct myself; he has two kinds of IDEAS - the GOOD ideas and the BAD ideas.
Like changing the lubricant on my flanges - a GOOD idea. When the light was gone and the someones were covered in canvas to keep warm during maintenance - "maintenance" is Passepartout's word - I was very still even in a stiff wind, so that he wouldn't fall onto my deck. The new lubricant had been nice.
We will not discuss the BAD ideas.
Once after one of THOSE, I nearly tipped him over the rail into my propellers, but Rebecca caught the ropes on his canvas and hauled him back to the deck. There were no more IDEAS for a time after that - three countries worth of no IDEAS.
I was soaring.
I discovered, quite by chance, that he soars as well. And, I think, that he might hear me.
He will sit on the upper observation deck for hours and look at the sky. Or he will take the blueprint log of himself and make drawings or put words there. Or he will talk.
He isn't talking to me. Or to the birds, when we fly too low. Or to himself - Passepartout does that sometimes, I find it very odd.
But there are words and sound. Rebecca called it "singing."
There are also things that are not things, like IDEAS, in his head. Don't ask me how I know this, but I do. Sometimes they are very soft and when he sits there thinking them, I can feel them lap against my canvas like the soft water in the mist from below. Sometimes they are loud and sharp when he thinks them and they make my canvas shudder like the big sound and the flashes in the sky.
He doesn't like those.
I can't say that I'm fond of them, either - "fond" is a Rebecca word.
When those things - the loud things - come into his head, I try to be very still to save the pressure on his flanges and bearings. Because I remember the soft things and the GOOD ideas. Because I am fond of him.
Rebecca is fond of him, too.
And because he brought my next words from Phileas.
Jules did not mean to do this, but he was the cause of it. It started with a certain canvas he wears.
I have noticed that someones change canvas. Phileas changes canvas SO many times that I become dizzy - I don't understand how the someones know one from the other with so much changing of canvas, but they do. Rebecca has the prettiest canvases.
But Jules had a canvas that Rebecca and Phileas and Passepartout didn't like. I don't think Jules liked it much either, but that he was in a way similar to me in that I don't have much say about my own canvas - I have to work with what I'm given, be it clean or dirty, new or patched.
It can be very embarrassing.
I didn't have such trouble with Jules' canvas, as it wasn't unlike my own. Mine is like the colors in the places where the bright thing above is warmer, there is no water to replenish my steam canister, and the sameness of it goes on for what seems like longitudes at a time. Some of Jules' canvas looked like mine. Rebecca and Passepartout and Phileas seem to like my canvas, but they didn't like the canvas that Jules would wear.
It is not really one canvas. The someones are covered with small pieces of canvas, like my sails or ballonets. I gather, from what Passepartout has said, that these canvas pieces fit together to form something called a 'suit.'
They did not like this suit.
Jules had other canvases that seemed to work well for the someones - it was just this one canvas. I didn't know why they didn't shred it and use it to buff my brass - which could have used a definite buffing after Jules and Phileas left their fingerprints all over me - but they didn't.
I thought about this. My brass needed buffing. I ground my bearings.
Then I understood something - just as the blueprint log that Jules carries was a 'mine' for him, so the suit was a 'mine' for him.
There were times when Rebecca wanted me to travel somewhere and Phileas would put his foot down - sharply on my deck, I still have the marks on the forward area - and say "mine" and Rebecca would grind her bearings, but we would not go to the place she wanted.
This was like the suit - the someones did not like it, but it was 'mine' for Jules. Even Jules didn't like it, but like me, he didn't have many other canvases to change. The someones could not shred the suit into buffing cloths because Jules would not let them.
Ah.
"Ah" is a Phileas word. I'm not sure what it means because it seems to mean many things, but I like the way it sounds - like the whir of my propeller when I hit an updraft.
Ah.
I had a plan.
I had not planned before. If something was bad, I would get rid of it. When something was good, I tried to keep it. But I had never thought of things that must be done at this time or that time.
My plan was not as complicated as my inflation system. My plan was this--
I would shred the suit.
I didn't know what would happen if I carried through my plan. I suspected that Jules might be cross with me - 'cross' is a Rebecca word - and that Passepartout might be cross with me, but that Phileas and Rebecca couldn't be cross with me because unlike Jules, they didn't wear the suit, and unlike Passepartout, they didn't clean and press the suit.
I also didn't know how exactly to blueprint my plan. It wasn't, I discovered, so much a matter of blueprinting as it would be a matter of creating conditions that would fill in the full page of a day's flight log.
I was very proud of that conclusion.
I needed a clear day upon which I could shift my ballast enough so that something leaving a particular starboard porthole would be shredded. I needed to open that porthole. I needed the suit to be untied from Jules, for I didn't want to shred him . . . at least not until the next BAD idea. Jules' canvas was usually only untied while in storage, which would mean disturbing movements on my part to open the storage. It was also untied when it was being cleaned. To be cleaned, it must be dirtied first.
I knew how to do that. Once, when Passepartout and Jules were in my access hatch, Jules stepped on one of my couplings - ouch! I TRIED to spray lubricant on him - he ducked. I sprayed lubricant on Phileas, instead. Phileas was unsettled.
I don't want to talk about that . . . .
Jules wore the suit. Passepartout was lubricating and fueling the someones. I shifted just enough against the wind to cause Passepartout to lose his balance - the lubricant he held fell over Jules' head and down the suit. It did not hurt - he went to the upper gondola rooms to change canvas. If he had only been like Phileas - leaving his canvas on my deck and furniture for Passepartout to gather - it would have been easier. But I like that Jules gathers his own canvas and properly stores it, instead of leaving it all over me. It shows respect.
"Respect" is a Phileas word.
That afternoon when Passepartout cleaned the canvas, he hung it on a line in his workroom; Phileas didn't like him to hang their canvas from my rails, although I don't know why because it would have dried faster. The portholes were opened to allow a breeze through the cabin, to dry the canvas more thoroughly. I did not mind this usually, as Passepartout was always careful to wring the canvas thoroughly before it was hung in my workroom so water drops wouldn't warp my veneer, but this time it made me excited - "excited' is a Jules word.
I waited until they were all below, inside the lower half of the gondola before I shifted. I had to wait until the canvas was mostly dry or it would have been too heavy to move. I shifted my bearing wall just enough to snap the pins holding each piece of the canvas, one at a time, by drawing the line they were hanging from very, very tight. It was like Rebecca when she throws sharp things at that plank she hangs upon my cabin wall; I was aiming for the porthole.
The first piece to release was the rust colored cloth - I didn't like that part of the suit because it always made me think that someone had not done proper maintenance for Jules. The drying rope gave a low sound, like a note of singing, and then the clips slipped off, the rust-colored canvas sailing across the workroom and toward the porthole. The buttons caught it there for a moment, but I built up more steam and pushed my propeller for all it was worth. The canvas was sucked through.
My propeller had a bad time with the bolts on that piece of canvas - I'd forgotten about that and one of them rudely dinged my blades. I sliced it up extra fine, the shreds of the canvas falling to the Other hard place.
I hope it surprised some birds.
I didn't know how long it would be before the someones discovered what I was doing. I warped the doorframe of the workroom so they couldn't untie the drying line and close the portholes. Shining with my success, I tried again.
There were lower parts of canvas and upper parts of canvas and tiny in-between parts of canvas like the ribbons Rebecca once tied to my railing. They were all shredded, one piece at a time, my propeller chopping them up in fine fashion.
The someones tried the access hatch as I was chopping up the last bit of the suit. I unwarped the door just in time, it seemed, for Passepartout had produced a long metal tool he was going to use to pry my door open.
I will have to let him know that I do not like that.
The drying line was empty, my final exertions having snapped it in two - it lay on the floor like a trailing rope, without purpose and discarded. A few shreds of the suits were also on the floor, having been blown back into the room after I shifted my propellers back to normal operation.
Jules found these bits. He seemed not to know what to say, picking up the rust and light-colored cloth and holding them out for Phileas and Rebecca to examine.
"I am not knowing how it happened, Master Jules," said Passepartout, his voice sounding similar to when he had found a NOT bird in my coupling compartment.
"It's not your fault, Passepartout."
"Of course it isn't his fault," agreed Phileas. He placed a hand on Jules' shoulder. "We shall have you fitted for a new one at my tailor, when we return to Saville Row."
"That's not necessary--"
Jules was trying to be brave - the same way I feel when the loud sounds rattle my canvas - but he did not need to try so hard. I had discovered that "brave" was a Jules word, although he didn't seem to know it.
"Nonsense," said Phileas. "The Aurora's mine and she's done the damage. The least I can do is--"
I didn't hear the rest.
Mine.
I felt like I do when Passepartout buffs the veneer in the forward cabin, that shining glow spreading throughout my wood and iron and canvas.
Passepartout was winding up the line, talking to himself again as he exited. Rebecca closed the portholes and then left. Jules stared for a while at the place where the line had been, examined the portholes, and ran his hands along the nails on my bearing wall - the studs were slightly protruding from my exertions. "Look at this, Fogg."
Phileas, too, studied the bearing wall, running his hands down the veneer of the paneling. "Perhaps she suffered more in that last bit of rough weather than we thought."
"But it's only here," protested Jules. He looked around the cabin again. "Only this wall and only this section."
He knew.
All of my propellers skipped a rotation and I fought not to drop from my position - I didn't want to frighten the someones. I waited for Jules to tell Phileas that I had done this, that it had been my first plan.
But he didn't. After shaking his head for a moment, he exited as well. Only Phileas remained to examine my walls and portholes one last time.
"That was very naughty of you, old girl," he said softly, "very naughty indeed - but a blessing in disguise."
It took a moment for it to sink through my waxing - Phileas was giving me words. Phileas was talking to ME.
Phileas knew I WAS.
For Jules to know was not so surprising - I've told you about the things in his head the other someones didn't have. But for Phileas to KNOW . . . .
My propellers nearly fell off at the surprise of it.
"Perhaps I'll have Passepartout see if he can arrange a new coat of paint for your port hull," he said, his hand still running along the studs in my veneer rather absently. "You would like that, wouldn't you?"
I was rather too abashed to show that I would, at least to him. And if he didn't stop touching those studs, I feared that I might shoot them out of the wall and across the room.
"Well done, old girl." Phileas paused in the access way and turned back to look into the cabin. "Well done."
I soared for latitude after latitude on the words alone.
Jules doesn't stomp so heavily on my staircase anymore and there are times, when he's been at my controls, when I have felt a feeling from him - he thinks of me as he thinks of those things in his head. I would be more flattered if some of those things did not unsettle him so.
Rebecca speaks to me now and again, as the others have begun to do, following Passepartout's example. I have let Passepartout coax my rudder into doing things it was not meant to do. When I am broken, they fix me. When they go away, I am bereft, as if my canvas has been deflated in preparation for packing. But when they return--
Aaaaaah.
I feel from them what I would have them feel from me. I'm proud of the new paint Passepartout has applied to my hull, the strength of the new coating Jules has designed for my canvas, and the flag that Rebecca has attached to my stern, which flutters so nicely and chases the birds from resting on the railing.
I think, sometimes, when I feel the creak in my ironwork and a weakness in my canvas, or when one of the someones is broken and requires maintenance, that it would be better to be NOT again. But always - always - when there is warmth and light and they are standing on the observation deck and I can hear the wind in their sails as they look out over the Other . . . I am glad that I AM.
And I am glad that they ARE with me.
****
The End.
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