“OMG really?”
– the bartender of a shady village bar
A special something happens when one sees giant kites flying for the first time. A sudden click of synapses deep inside the brain.
It’s uncanny, but in a good way. It stirs the earliest memories, uplifting them into consciousness: a family picnic, the taste of a watermelon, a blurry image of a friend whose name and face has long been buried deep in the lizard brain.
Running across the meadow. A string in the hand.
Something rising into the sky. Beautiful, free, unbound – yet controlled by that hand.
A kite.
You have flown kites for some time now. You’ve seen it all, flying, falling, rising, crashing. You saw the shapes, you bathed in colours, you admired the sizes. You think nothing can unsettle you, not kites; come on, you are an experienced kiter.
And then you go to the kite flying field, and it’s pitch-black, and it’s like the first time ever.
Night flying. Same, but completely different.
The forecast was perfect, so we gathered at 6 PM on our usual kite flying place. We took our newest aerial addition, a LED kite, a 4 m astronaut laundry.
As soon as we let the lifter fly, the wind died.
Then it started to rain a bit, but we pressed on. The lifter was kinda flying, we clipepd the astronaut, our little Tinky Binky, to the line – and pressed the ON button on the remote.
The battery was dead.
So we packed everything, drove to the nearby village, found a shady bar (it’s our superpower after all), and asked the bartender if we could plug the charger – and have a beer while we wait.
“That’s a hefty battery … what exactly is it for?”
We immediately told her the truth, all truth, and nothing but the truth … and she was, well, a bit suspicious (until she saw the photos). Who wouldn’t be … two ageing city boys in a shady village bar talking about flying kites – at night?
The battery charged, the beers drunk – it was time to go back to the flying place. The wind suddenly changed its mind and started to cooperate, the rain moved on.
We took the remote and pressed ON.
And …
Our first night flying.
Just like the very first time …
And we took a selfie!
What? it was night, remember?