We arrived at our destination, which was a large square not far from the Vatican hill. I could see the pale domes of those palaces rising over the low buildings surrounding the square.

Water burbled from the upended basins held by twin cherubs that were the centerpiece of the modest fountain in the center of the square. The never-ending tinkle of water underscored all the other activity going on around it.

Specifically, the four hot air balloons and their accompanying trucks and trailers. Swarthy Italians swarmed the balloons, inflating them slowly with helium. All four were patterned after the Italian flag, green at the top, then white in the middle, and finally a ring of red around the bottom.

The buckets were larger than I thought. Like giant, uncovered wicker picnic baskets. I guess it shouldn't have been so surprising, since I'd never been so close to one before. I'd only ever seen hot air balloons drifting around through the sky.

"What do you think?" Liam asked. Even though we'd arrived late, they still weren't set up. Apparently even billionaires had to wait sometimes. We leaned against the side of the BMW.

"They're beautiful," I said, watching the balloon closest to us slowly lift off the ground and begin assuming its final shape. It reminded me of a light bulb, the bulge at the top tapering down to a narrow neck that the operator could use to heat the balloon using the large burners mounted beneath.

There was something majestic about the balloons, something graceful and gentle.

The slowly fading sunlight helped with that, too. The dusky light made everything ethereal and timeless. As though everything around us had its own internal glow.

"I know you can just bring up a satellite image of the city," Liam said, "But it's not the same as when you're literally floating above it, looking down."

As the balloons filled, the men crewing them kept them anchored to the ground using bags of sand tied to ropes.

The balloons jerked against this resistance now and again, like animals becoming testy with their bonds, impatient for the freedom afforded by the open sky.

And that made me notice the sky. It had darkened from its afternoon blue to a purplish shade, a few thin streamers of cloud so high they hardly seemed to move topping it off.

"I like to remind myself to look up," Liam said, following my gaze, "It's so easy to let life and responsibility and worry anchor you down and make you forget that there's more out there than you and your troubles."

"And looking up helps you to forget all that?" I said, taking in Liam's wonderment and the way it softened his eyes and gave him a youthful cast.

"No, it's just as bad to forget. It doesn't make me forget. It gives me perspective, tempers me."

"And you swear you had all this planned before I told you about school?" I said, feeling like that message was directed squarely at me.

Then I nudged him in the ribs, bringing those lovely baby blue eyes of his down from the skies and onto me. He smiled at what he saw, a touch of mischief making one corner of his mouth quirk up higher than the other.

"I swear that I didn't. Though it is apt... They're ready."

Other people had arrived while we waited. Other passengers, waiting for their chance to board and grumbling at the whole show starting late. Mostly tourists, I thought.

A large man in a Hawaiian shirt, a black Nikon strapped to his neck, was the first on. The basket, floating a few inches off the ground, tilted alarmingly beneath his weight. The driver tugged the chain to blow more hot air into the balloon to compensate.

Liam had reserved a balloon all to us. And I mean only the two of us.

He held my hand as I stepped up into the basket. It shifted slightly beneath my feet, and a sudden, sickening vertigo curdled in my stomach.

It got worse when the thin Italian who I thought would be our driver for the evening stepped off, nodding to Liam as he closed the door to the basket.

The tourists in the other baskets noticed, and I could hear them talking confusedly and see them pointing.

"What's happening? What's going on?" I said, the hot blood my suddenly racing heart started pumping clashing with the cold, queasy feeling rising up through my stomach.

"Didn't I say I'd be your tour guide for the evening?" Liam said.

"You most certainly did not!"

"Oh, well then, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Liam, and I'll be operating this hot air balloon. When we've landed, if you wouldn't mind completing a brief customer satisfaction survey, that would be great. Before we lift off, does anyone have any questions?"

"How do I get out of this thing?"

He shrugged. Then he tugged on the chain and the little furnace snarled as hot, blue flames leaped up. I hadn't noticed that the man who'd gotten off had shipped the sandbags, and that we'd begun to drift.

The infusion of hot air gave the balloon lift, and then I could see the marble curls of hair on the heads of the fountain cherubs as we drifted over it.

"You'll have to wait until we set down again. Just enjoy the ride," Liam said.

It was a strange disconnect to not be on the ground. To watch it get slowly smaller and smaller beneath you so that it was as though you looked down on a living map of the city.

Anxiety tingled inside of me, but excitement was there, too, at the nape of my neck where the fine hairs began standing, in the way my blinking slowed so that I wouldn't miss a second of this experience.

Soon the entirety of the Vatican came into view. The city within the city. The only place in the world where Latin was still a living, spoken language. The many-columned buildings of the Piazza San Pietro came into view. Their windows seemed to burn with the dying of the light.

And we kept going higher and higher, Liam tugging on that chain that breathed hot air into the balloon.

The other three balloons had also launched by now, all at different heights. Cameras flashed, and on the breeze I caught the excited voices of the other tourists.

If I leaned over just slightly, I could pretend that I floated on the air itself.

"I didn't know you knew how to fly one of these things," I said.

"Who said I knew how to fly it? I just keep tugging this cord here," Liam said.

"Not funny. Not funny at all," I said, wheeling to face him. His joke had the effect of making me realize there were only a few inches of material between me and the open air beneath us.

And by that point that gulf of open air had become more than just a gap.

"I thought it was. But yes, I can fly this thing, among others." Then he nodded for me to look out.

It was the sunset. The sun had begun its slow descent into the Mediterranean. The sky had turned pink around it, sending out tendrils of color that painted the few clouds I'd noticed earlier into deep shades of imperial purple.

It took my breath away, and for those few moments I really did forget all my troubles.

And that sensation only grew stronger when I found the strength to peer down at Rome again. The glow I'd noticed before had only intensified, really making it seem like the eternal city many called it. Ageless, ethereal, and sublime.

The headlights of cars flowed along its streets, along the highways ringing the city. And there were so many people there. All tiny from up there.

I squeezed my eye mostly shut and held my thumb and forefinger out over the edge, holding the entirety of the Pantheon's rotunda between them. If I closed my fingers together, would it be crushed to marble debris?

It wouldn't, of course. But up there, it felt that way.