Bristol Balloon
"At the famous fiesta, balloon pilot Penny has flown over Bristol for thirty years. When photographer James needs aerial shots, she takes him higher than expected."
Bristol's balloon fiesta was the largest in Europe, and I'd been flying in it since I was eighteen. My balloon—a patchwork beauty called "Sky Dancer"—had become as famous as any of the special shapes.
"Captain Morrison?"
The photographer waiting by my envelope was clearly professional—serious equipment, respectful distance, the expression of someone who understood that pilots had pre-flight routines.
"Penny. And you're here for the aerial shots."
"James Ashworth. I'm documenting the fiesta for a coffee table book. I was told you give the smoothest ride."
"I give the safest ride. Smooth is a bonus."
He flew with me every day of the festival. Not just photographing—learning, understanding what made ballooning different from every other form of flight. The silence, the cooperation with wind, the particular vulnerability of floating in a fabric bag.
"Why balloons?" he asked during day four. We'd landed in a farmer's field, waiting for the chase crew.
"Because you can't fight the wind—you have to work with it. Because the silence is sacred. Because—" I looked at the envelope deflating nearby. "Because floating over a city at dawn, watching the world wake up, is the closest thing to pure happiness I know."
"That's poetic."
"That's flying. Poetic is what people call it when they don't understand."
"I'm beginning to understand." He moved closer. "Penny. I've photographed plenty of subjects. You're the first one who made me want to stop photographing and just experience."
"Photography is your experience."
"Photography was my barrier. You're teaching me to see without the lens." His hand found mine. "Can I keep learning?"
We kissed in the farmer's field while the balloon waited and the chase crew approached. His photographer's mouth was warm, immediate—the kiss of someone capturing a moment.
"My cottage is near the festival grounds," I said.
"I was hoping."
The cottage was pilot's practical—weather instruments, charts, the evidence of a life spent reading the sky. James looked around with appreciation.
"This is navigation."
"This is life. Navigation's just how I get through it."
"I want to navigate with you."
We made love while balloons prepared for the evening mass ascent, our bodies finding thermals that the atmosphere couldn't explain. James touched me with photographer's attention—framing, focusing, finding the shot that mattered.
"You're beautiful," he said.
"I'm built for baskets."
"You're built for flight." He kissed down my body. "The most beautiful things rise."
We came together while the Bristol skyline waited to be filled with color, both of us finding altitude that the envelope couldn't provide. When I gasped his name, it was with the same exhilaration I felt at lift-off.
"Stay," I said.
"In Bristol?"
"In my basket. In my life." I touched his face. "The fiesta ends in three days. We don't have to."
He stayed. The book became definitive—"Bristol Ascending"—but more than that, my flights gained a co-pilot who understood why the silence mattered.
"We're rising together now," James said one night.
"We're floating together."
"Is that different?"
"It's better. Rising requires effort. Floating requires trust." I pulled him closer. "I trust you."
The balloons still fly. The fiesta still amazes. And now there's a photographer who became a pilot's partner, who found in the Bristol sky everything he'd been ascending toward.