Airheads

It wasn’t too long ago that the dream of every person, young or old, was to hover. Children would fall asleep imagining a nation full of hovercrafts, hoverboards and hovershoes. Business meetings would be derailed by hoverchat. Ironic, since hovertrains were supposed to have a low chance of derailing themselves. Pets yearned to float while eating hoverchow from hoverbowls. Hovering was in the air.

There were only two nominally anti-hover contingents among the adult population – magicians and birds. The Copperfields, the Blaines – cornerstones of the landed, mystical gentry - feared territorial encroachment on their levitation skills. It took talent to float above a crowd. What would they do if anyone in their audience also had the ability to suspend themselves in the air? They’d simply come too far to return to pulling bunnies out of crackerjack boxes in poorly lit Bayonne, New Jersey VFW halls. Would they have to actually buy a wand again? Tuxedos went out of fashion with the sinking of the Titanic. But this would change everything. Some young wizards like John Wand out of Bayonne were up for it. The way he figured it, why not give everyone the skills it takes to levitate? Felt more equitable, more American. 

Birds were against it from the beginning. They’d have protracted meetings, not unlike parliamentary question time, debating the subject. There were some birds, like owls, who thought it best to take a rather ecumenical position on hovering. Why should they be the only ones above the fray? Is this an airspace problem? There was plenty to share. Even though hovering was hardly flying at altitude, many anxious avians lived in fear. All it would take would be a single housecat flying several feet off the ground to ruin everything. And they had much more to fear than wizards with their pointy hats and flexible swords. This was more than a threat to their livelihood – it was a threat to their lives. A world of flying cats meant no nest would be safe and no tree impregnable. 

As we now know, their fears were totally unfounded. As quickly as the hovercraze hit, it subsided. It was a veritable hovercrash. Martin St. McFly sure looked cool hovering around town. Too bad it was no way to relate to the common people. Everyone deserves to be on the same level.   

We came to our senses with most people losing interest after realizing hovering just meant surfing on air. Regular folks wondered if they would have to start acting like surfers. Peppering their speech with words like “tubular” “gnarly” and “cowabunga.” What if they liked sunscreen? This proved to be a non-starter, sidelining the hoverdream for good. The birds were elated, the magicians were relieved and the rest of us could remain totally grounded. Sure, some still hoped against hope that they could finally skip their swim classes at the YMCA and learn to walk on water like the bearded boys of yore. They’d been sentenced to a lifetime of perpetual guppiedom. Treading water and doing laps is the fastest way to go nowhere in life. Because walking on water was a metaphor - what they were really doing was hovering. 

Yet we still climbed up staircases and entered tall buildings to touch the clouds. In advertising, normal conversation inevitably turns to a discussion of what’s groundbreaking. Heated seats that warm the coldest souls. Ketchup, through a chemical process no one should witness, that’s a totally clear liquid. Hovering was once firmly in this category, too. But there’s nothing groundbreaking about leaving ground. Earthquakes on the other hand – what’s more groundbreaking than that?  

For my next trick…