Nine Hundred Eighth Contact

Wednesday, 19th March 2025, 9:14 hrs

Quetzal:

Eduard, greetings my friend, but today I only come to dictate something to you. It is an article you wrote in 1949, which I found in my grandfather's estate, and it seems important to me that you should include this article in your new book, which you are working on. As I read in the annals, this article was stolen from you at school by your schoolmate and given to teaching assistant Frei, who immediately teamed up with Mrs Horat, after which the two of them ambushed you in the 'Vollebern' and beat you up badly. My grandfather then kept this article in the teacher's desk, where he had stored it, because it was your property that was stolen from you.

Billy:

Yes, now that you mention it, I remember that. The two of them intercepted me when I was on my way to Seiler Bächi, who had made me a 5-kilometre kite string for free.

Quetzal:

Kite string, what is that?.

Billy:

You really don't know. – It's good – it's a huge, long, thin string made from hemp.

I used it to fly my kite so high and far that it flew in the wind over the whole village of Bülach from Niederflachs, where I lived.

Quetzal:

What is a 'kite' then?.

Billy:

It's a wind-powered flying device, which in German is simply called a 'Flug-Drachen' (flying kite), Kite flying is ancient, as the first kites were flown in China around 3000 years ago, so this goes back to a long tradition. According to tradition, flying kites were made from bamboo stems joined together in a cross shape – in Europe, wooden sticks or thin metal tubes are used for this – which were held together on the outside all round with strings – in Europe also thin wires – and covered with silk, which made them a good wing for the wind. This kite structure was attached to a long string and then released into the air and into the wind, where the kite fluttered back and forth depending on the win