When I first met the Ship, I was scared of it. I, the fearless Timok, was scared of something. It’s not shameful to admit that, you know. After all, fear is a good feeling, because it helps us be aware of the dangers that could happen to us.
Fear makes our bodies faster, our vision sharper, and our hearing better. Of course, as soon as you see that you are afraid of something, you have to think about how you can overcome that fear. It’s simple. Let’s say I’m afraid of someone. I look at that person and then, as soon as I feel afraid, I think about how I could solve the problem. What solutions do I have? Think about what you would do in such a situation and discuss with the adults around how it is better to proceed.
That’s what I did. I got very close to Lumi and Color, to make sure they protect me. And, standing there, I started looking around. I looked at the Ship, I raised my head high to see how big it was. It was very big and looked like a ball with pipes around it. Like if your play ball had giant antennas around it that helped it. I don’t know what they were helping it with.
Then the Ship spoke to me. It called out, “Timok, Timok, how good to see you!” And it had such a gentle and beautiful voice that some of my fear went away. But I remained vigilant, because I know that a beautiful voice can just be a trick.
I followed Lumi and Color on a kind of iron road that went into the Ship and found myself at home. I quickly went out to see how they could have brought me home so quickly by magic, but outside there was only that iron road and people looking at us.
I got scared again and quickly went back inside the house. I forgot about the scare as soon as I saw my bed and my food ration there. I sat down and thought.
Hmm, what kind of magic is this? How did they manage to bring our house and cram it into the Ship? Then I heard Music and Selfi talking about how good the builders were when they made that extraordinary ship resemble our house.
I liked the ship and I got along well with it from then on. It seemed to take care of us and I always considered it part of our family. The big Ship and us five little ones and tiny ones, are going on the biggest adventure of our lives.
Let me tell you a little about the big ships that travel high, high above, where there is no noise, no air, and none of the things you encounter on Earth. You see, where you live, on Earth, there is an invisible force that pulls us all towards the surface of the Earth. It’s called gravity and because of it, it’s complicated to jump very high in the air when you want to jump.
In fact, as soon as you jump, this force gets to work and pulls you down towards the Earth. To fly, because they need to face this invisible force, birds need to keep flapping their wings.
If you look closely, when they fly, birds seem to rise a little and fall a little, rise and fall, over and over again. When they fall, that force pulls them down, and when they rise, they manage to use their wings and be stronger than the force I’m telling you about.
This almost magical force is called gravity. Because of it, a ball you drop from your hand won’t fly up or to the left or right, but will fall down. If you want to make the ball jump up, you have to hit it hard. And the higher you want to send it, the more power you need when you hit it.
That’s how it is with these ships that fly among the stars. They need an extraordinary force to be able to leave Earth, which can beat the force of gravity that keeps pulling them down. That’s why they have gigantic engines that spit out flames and push them powerfully towards the sky.
Then, as soon as they have flown high enough, the force of gravity decreases, and the ship needs less power. When they get high, high above, the ships float without needing engines or any special power. There, in space, among the stars, people also float inside the ships, because there is no gravity to pull them down.
And I will tell you more about ships and their special powers in the future, as our adventure continues. Until then, remember.
Jump up, jump without fear It pulls you to Earth It’s called gravity You can take my word for it
Timok