The Human
Airplane
by Amit
Parmessur
I must ask for
permission before writing this novel. Here I am,
going to meet the main character. I am speaking
to him now.
“Can I write
on you?” I asked.
‘On me?’
“I mean, can
I write about you?”
‘Sure,’
he said with a smile. ‘Sure, you can write.’
So. Why delay?
He eats so much
that he will wilfully give his teeth for a piece
of chicken. Rainy running in muscular fields has
made him very strong. He is as strong as... as...
I... I cannot... I just... I... as strong as? AS?
he is @s as! as strong as... a$ as
let’s say as... as? As two and a half
Hercules. His brother’s brother is mad. (He
has only one brother.) His aptly appalling
appellation, full of horizontal altitude is JusTravElWithMe.
His slogan: “Prepare yourself to pare the
wind!”
Why the human
airplane? If you want to know, know him, he will
simply make you fly with a simple kick. To
wherever you want.
Once, at the
university I met him. I had spent my bus fare. He
sent me home with a semi-kick. Inland travelling.
A few days later I met him again. I accidentally
laughed at him. He sent me home. I had to come
back to the university for I had an important
lecture.
Do never ever
anger him. Or you fly, like an insect. With a
kick to the North Pole. Backheel; South Pole.
Once one of my
friends also went to him. “Send me to
France,” she requested.
‘Sit on the
air in front of me, and say one to three,’
he said.
“One to
three,” my friend said. In anticipation.
“No. One,
two, three. Say it.”
‘One two
three,’ she said and there she went, free
from university life. I heard recently she is
enjoying life in Marseilles. With JusTravElWithMe’s
free business flourishing you will often see
university students flying, in their airy seat,
saluting you. Someone must be flying right now.
Once, another
friend went to him. Her name Sandrina. He kicked
her so powerfully that ‘Sand’ went some
place and ‘rina’ to some other far away
land. As an excuse to this rare mistake JusTravElWithMe
would say the girl must have had a split
personality.
But now I hear
rumours.
Firstly that JusTravElWithMe
is planning to charge his passengers. And have
highhh poles erected everywhere in the world to
facilitate the landing of his customers. Who can
simply cling and slide down to destination. I
heard people speaking of him introducing bicycle
kicks and volleys also.
Second, I heard he
is giving up. Supposedly he missed his last
passenger and kicked a nearby lamppost. He is
down. But, these are only rumours. But what is
the joy?
What is the joy?
But, what is the joy of making others travel like
this when you yourself have to consider
airplanes? I told him that. He tried to exile me.
I ran away. I had an important lecture.
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