Every element has its inhabitant: the gnomes hidden deep down in the earth, the salamanders playing in the flames of the fire, the mermaids in the sea, and the sylphides in the air.
Thin and nearly colorless are the sylphides, like the air itself, being invisible or of a light blue. They life above the highest clouds, and seldom do humans encounter them; it is said that Quigley of Fermanagh, mentioned in the "Third Policeman", once met one of them while he was making observations in a ballon. He fell in love with one of them (her name was ---h----, I think) and left his ballon to stay with them - in the meantime his friends on the surface of the earth pulled the rope that was holding the ballon, and were very astonished to find it empty. Fourteen days later, they let the ballon start again, and as they pulled it down for a second time, Quigley returned, as if nothing had happened. They asked him what had happened to him, but he just laughed - a strange laughing, as if something above the clouds had touched his mind. The next day, they found that the ballon had started again and that Quigley had disappeared. But since he didn't talk about his experiences, we only know little about the sylphides. It is said that they life in wonderful palaces; if they get bored with the special shape a palace have, they melt it down, and it turns to water, which we call "rain", and make a new one out of dust and wishes. Since they do breath a clean air without any miasma like we stucked close to the surface of the world do, they are immortal and therefore do not reproduce. It is conjectured that there are only female sylphides, and that this was the reason why Quigley didn't talk to anybody about his secret: he wanted to be the only man living above the clouds. Maybe he is still living there, not aging, together with some gay girls in dream palaces, eating exotic fruits not existing here, living his days in neverending sunshine, his nights under moonlight never hidden by clouds.
Sometimes, when the nights are starless and bible-black, the moon consumed by clouds, I remember him and wonder wether he is missing something. Did he once return to earth because he missed something, and than, back on earth, he realised that he even more missed ---h---- (if that's her name)? Or did he just wanted to say good-bye to his old mother, before returning to his new home forever? Is he happy? Is it possible for a human being to be happy for a longer amount of time? Will he still be happy in a million years? In a trillion years? Does he remember us? Does he remember to have been a mortal man at all?