Like all good adventures, this one started innocently enough. It is a well-known fact that most real adventures are never planned, they just tend to happen. Normally an adventure is well underway before you even realise that you are part of it and it often takes you to places that you never expected. And finally, you’ll be often left in a place of which you never dreamed, even if that place is back where you started. Not that an adventure ever really ends, because your mind and soul are often changed, forever.

This is pretty much how this tale begins. In fact, the telling of Boris’ adventure begins when it is already midway through.

As far as it can be remembered, and not forgetting that memory is a mercurial thing, it was one of those typically quiet and sunny days in the bush. Everything was it should be, just as it had been every other day. The protagonist of this tale was standing in exactly the same place as he done for a very long time. He was not however one of your typical bush inhabitants, Boris was in fact a soccer ball. Even though he was only a ball he stood there quietly thinking about his place in the universe. What you might wonder is why an introspective soccer ball was sitting in the middle of the bush in the first place. As you sit reading this you may be of the opinion that only humans have the ability to think and ponder. What you may have forgotten is that everything on this planet, including us, are simply a conglomeration of atoms. And that every atom vibrates with the same energy. Conversely, everything has the potential to think, or ponder, or wonder. Granted that most of the thinking that goes on in living things is basic and relates to survival and reproduction. It is far to say that Boris wasn’t your average abandoned soccer ball. For a start, he had come to the odd conclusion that he might actually be a sapling rather than a soccer ball. He really had been sitting there so long that he had only vague memories of why he was, where he was.

How he came to be standing in the middle of the bush was a tale in itself.

Boris could remember some parts of his former life. He was born in the Czech Republic and he was fortunate enough to become one of a group of soccer balls that were used by a famous Italian soccer team. He only had a vague notion of this, being naturally a bit of an air-head. For a while, he thought he might be a bird because he used to fly through the air and be caught in a net. The other balls thought him a little too thoughtful. Even though they spent long hours in a basket together, the other balls didn’t even give him the time of day. His first moment of fame was at the end of one match when he was the deciding goal. He simply flew into the net, just as he often did, but this time the massive arena where he was playing erupted with cheering. After the game, Boris was signed by one of the players and given to a man from Australia who’s company sold electronics. This man had no deep interest in the game, he was simply in Italy working to have his company’s name written on the players’ jerseys. Boris was taken to Australia shut inside a suitcase, inside the cargo hold of a giant aeroplane that travelled thousands of kilometres from the Italian stadium to the other side of the globe. Of course, Boris didn’t know this at the time because it was quite dark and stuffy in amongst the man’s other belongings.

When the father returned home he gave the soccer ball to his young son. The boy was pleased to have yet another new toy even if he couldn’t decipher the marker pen scrawled inscription on the Boris’s skin. Boris became the flavour of the moment and enjoyed being kicked around once more. He spent many happy hours with the little boy and his friends out in the fresh air and bright sunshine. When he wasn’t being played with Boris was given pride of place sitting on a shelf above the little boy’s bed. Boris enjoyed their play at first, although latter he often had to suffer with being left out overnight or in the rain. Though he was from a different country, he did learn to decipher the strange, new accents and sounds of his new home. A little later the father gave the little boy another new toy and Boris was neglected completely. After this, he spent all his time outside in the backyard. There he spent his days listening to the world around him or meeting the odd animal that wandered in from the bush at the bottom of the garden.

Over time Boris’s shiny black and white coat bleached in the sun, his leather hide split and the black texta signature faded. One day the little boy, and some of his friends who were bored with the latest computer game, rolled out into the garden. They discovered Boris quietly sitting where he had been left. So began a rough game of backyard soccer with Boris in the middle. A bulky little kid called Troy was extremely rough and kicked him quite hard. One kick too many saw Boris flying through the air, over the back fence and into the bush behind. When Boris hit the ground he bounced again before proceeding to bump and roll and thud and whack down the hill through the trees. Eventually, with his head spinning, he came to rest at the feet of some large trees underneath a clump of bushes. For a while he could hear the distant voices of the children searching further up the hill. He waited patiently, expecting to be found at any moment. Then the boy’s mother called the boys to lunch. Quickly, a blanket of silence enveloped the forest and Boris. He continued to wait for a long, long time before he realised that he was never going to be rescued.

Over the following weeks, some of the local animals came to visit Boris. Some sniffed him while one little mouse like creature even tried to nibble at his hide but none wanted to talk. He tried communicating with some of the tall trees at whose feet he lay yet for all his efforts they all simply treated him with disdain. They made fun of his funny round shape and even called him names. Which is why he’s called Boris. His real name was Arrougha, yet one of the trees in a witty fit of adolescent pique called him ‘Boris the weed’. This caused a great deal of mirth amongst the forest creatures. Fortunately, over time ‘the weed’ part was dropped, but the name Boris stuck.

So how did his true adventure eventually start – noisily, very noisily. To begin with it wasn’t all that noisy, in fact, the forest was its usual quiet self. A little chirping of a bird, a distant burble of a stream and the gentle rustle of the wind through the trees. The bush quietly conversing about all manner of things, but about nothing in particular. It was during one of the quieter moments when the wind shifted. It brought with it the sound of destruction. The ground rumbled, Boris heard a crashing of trees, then from the direction of the noise burst a large, yellow bulldozer. It came pushing before it a growing mound of rock and broken trees. With a deep rumble and a puff of black smoke, it drew back, before attacking again, pushing over the tree that had stood near Boris. The forest animals quickly fled from the monster while Boris could do nothing but sit. Behind the bulldozer, travelling along a broad area of scored and naked ground rumbled several dirty trucks. Along this rough road came a number of grimy, burly men, all with yellow hard hats. It was one of these men who later that day found Boris after the undergrowth that had hidden him for so long had been removed. This man kicked Boris out of the way, then another man kicked him to yet another man. Soon a mock game of soccer started. Then the referee, a man with a superior air, blew a whistle and yelled for the men to get back to work. The man who had just been kicked Boris halted, then with one almighty kick, Boris took flight once again. He flew away from the dying trees and the long thin scar on the ground. His trajectory arced over towards another group of tall trees that had not been attacked by the road building crew. Boris noticed that he was rapidly approaching a large patch of water. With a splash, he landed in the middle of a fast flowing stream.

Before he had the chance to even think the current began to carry him downstream. Tumbling and falling in between the rocks, he was never quite upright, never quite able to focus on where he was before he tumbled over the next drop. Face up, face down, belly up, belly down he tumbled and rolled. Eventually the current began to slow, and he slowly rocked upright. Finally, Boris was able to take stock of where he was. He sense of panic left him as he was lying in a large moving puddle. His bottom was very wet, while on the positive side the rest of him was starting to dry out. He had felt rain before, and on numerous occasions had lain in large puddles though every time he had also rested on the ground, this though was a new experience. Not unpleasant – just different.

While Boris was becoming accustomed to his new situation. The world of the stream went on around him. Every now and then a bird would sweep down over the water, the sun sparkled on the water and shadows fell and dappled across the stream’s surface. The stream began to slow then to twist and turn. As it flowed along other streams soon joined his stream; the stream grew wider and the banks began to recede. The shadows grew longer across the water, and the sun dropped out of the sky leaving behind a brilliant crimson colour before even that faded to an inky black. After many hours, the stars began to fade and the world was cast with a grey-blue light, then the sunlight reflected once more on the water. The dark shadows shrank and then grew again before the world was cloaked again in darkness once more. This cycle was repeated again and again with slight variations as Boris drifted further downstream with the current. After many days, the stream had almost imperceptibly become a river and now another force, the wind, began to decide where Boris travelled. The breeze pushed the water into little ripples and those into waves that slapped against his round side. The wind caught against his drier top-side which acted like a little sail and he was pushed further downstream.

In all this time he had not been able to ask any other creature where he was, Boris simply drifted along being directed by the forces of nature. The birds and clouds passed high overhead way out of his reach. On occasions Boris spotted an animal drinking by the waters edge, yet he was never close enough to find out more about what was happening to him. Sometimes he did drift closer to the bank, although usually before he could catch the attention of any creature the current would tug him or the breeze would blow him back out into the main current. The trees on the bank grew fewer while houses, cars and people began to be more common. Boris held out hope, for a while, that one of them might be the little boy or his father. That they would take him out of this wet world and back to the garden or ever better still back to the shelf in the boy’s bedroom. That thought was completely washed away when he experienced his very first boat.

Without understanding what it was, the loud, noisy and dark object bore down on Boris from behind. He heard it chugging down the river and could feel the vibrations of its propeller winding through the water. The waves only turned him round just in time to see the dark shape of the boat bearing down. The boat was almost on top of him when the bow wave pushed him out of harms way. Boris then rolled and bounced and was washed down the side of the boat. He was splashed and dunked, then as the boat began to pass he was dragged under the water by the pull of the propeller. It was only because he was full of air that he popped back to the surface. Spluttering and bobbing he was tossed about in the boat’s wake. The oblivious boat passed on down river trailing a cloud of smelly, black smoke. That might have been enough of an encounter for Boris but soon he was being tossed again and again as the river traffic became more frequent. Some loomed close again, though none came as near as the first boat. Others passed at a distance, each one threw out a trail of waves in its wake. These tossed and rocked Boris ever closer to the riverbank.

Slowly, with the added push of the wind and current he drifted into a quiet corner of the bank underneath a dark, shadowy jetty. There he became part of a scummy group of flotsam and jetsam. Plastic bottles, bits of bright coloured rope, different sized pieces of timber, plus parts of trees that had been stripped of all their leaves and sat heavy in the water all joined him. There was even a dead, silver fish, its body lying flat on the water, its eyes lifeless. It was some time before Boris realised that he was never going to get any news from this strange creature, not ever having stared death in the eye.

Boris stayed for a while amongst the rubbish in the shadows beneath the timber jetty. The only live creature he did once manage to talk to was a dirty water rat. He learnt nothing new, as the rat was only interested in food. After nibbling at Boris’ damp leather and finding it quite unpalatable he left. He seemed too preoccupied to answer any of Boris’s questions. Nor was he interested in hearing anything of his adventure. The rat did not find anything odd about Boris floating there; he only was a little surprised that Boris didn’t know that he was in the city. The rat then passed on into the shadows, scrambling over the cross beams and the timbers, busy in his search for food. Boris was left alone again in the semi-gloom. He began to miss the cheery sun and the bright blue of the sky. He also wasn’t all that keen on the dark water and was tired of having a wet bottom. In the early morning, the angle of the sunlight turned the water under the jetty an iridescent green colour. Through its depths, Boris could discern the dark, flitting shadows of schools of adolescent fish.

Life would probably have stayed that way for a long while if a very large ship had not passed close enough to throw out a huge wake. The waves washed in under the jetty and slapped against a rock wall deeper in the shadows. The reflected waves broke up the tightly knitted flotsam. Boris taking this opportunity moved out from under the jetty with the faint eddy of the falling tide. He drifted out into the bright afternoon sunlight and back into the relentless current which pulled him slowly further down the river. He bobbed out past the yachts moored in the marina, out away from the large cargo ships in the harbour. He floated out past all the buildings, away from the hills and the people on the shore. Everything he knew slowly disappeared from view as he was pulled out to sea by the rapidly falling tide.

At one point he thought he recognised a fellow traveller when he floated past a large, red port channel marker. Because of its round shape, Boris thought it might have a relation and tried calling out to the buoy. As it never responded Boris reasoned it must have been too far away to hear. Actually, it had ignored him for it had a very important job to do and didn’t have time to associate with riff-raff. Either way, they never spoke and Boris floated on past.

By now the sun was beginning to fall into the western clouds and the land fading into shadows. In the gathering darkness, lights began to twinkle along the shore. With the prevailing wind blowing him further out to sea the pinpricks of light soon fade into the dark night. Without any respite, the current carries our little adventurer further out into the swell of the deep sea. Rising high to the crest of one wave he was then gently lowered below the level of the horizon, then lifted again on the next swell. In a world of darkening blue, he rose and fell. The movement gently repeated as the wind began to pick up. The waves increased in size and the wind pushed against Boris’s sail-like side. Darkness fell with the rising and falling. Stars came out in the night sky and the waves continued, slowly, gently rocking him further out to sea.

When the sun rose the next morning, it was over an empty horizon. The sky was a brilliantly clear roof of blue, the few white clouds untainted by grey. The colour of the water had deepened, and the sunlight glinted across the waves. The swell had increased in size; its rise and fall greater than he had ever experienced. Some of the waves were taller than the hill he bounced down so long ago. At the crest of the waves Boris could see there was nothing to see. The land had long since disappeared, and he was now in the middle of the wide ocean.

His life soon took on the rhythm of the sea. He experienced its many moods, from placid and benign to savage and windswept. He saw very little life even though the sea was not as barren as it seemed. Below him the ocean depths teamed with life, schools of fish swarmed amongst the faint rumble of whales talking. Above the waves, swept along by the same wind as he was, travelled clouds of all shapes and sizes, from high streaks of cold fronts to rumbling, dark storm clouds. Even Boris started to take on the appearance of a sea creature. After such a long time in the water, his bottom began to be colonised, first by algae and then by barnacles. He had become his own little world, a mini ecosystem in his own right. All this time on the ocean gave him an opportunity to contemplate his existence. Most of his memories of his earlier life faded, and he now only vaguely remembered the adulation of the cheering crowds or his time with the little boy.

Sometimes he would dream of being back in the arena, and then he would wake again in the middle of his wide, watery world. Life went on like this for quite some time until early one afternoon deep down below him a shark began prowling. Boris had no fear of sharks, as he had neither seen one before nor knew anything of its teeth. The shark was circling a school of fish that knew all to well the damage the bite of a shark could inflict. In their fear, the fish began rushing away from the shark. With its open mouth close behind them, the fish were herded by the shark towards the surface. The sea around Boris suddenly burst into flickers as the fish teamed to the surface. Their splashing not only caught Boris’s attention, but just as quickly a flock of sea-birds were diving down to feast on the fish. Boris’s quiet meditation was disturbed as all around him the host of squawking birds ate their fill.

When a relative peace returned, Boris was able to gain the attention of one of the sated birds. This gull, whose name Boris never quite caught though it sounded something like Stewark, was mildly surprised to see Boris. They sat together bobbing on the ocean. Their talk weighed heavily on Stewark’s side as he prattled on about fish, flying and his constant travels in the search for food. Only when he talked about the land did Boris’s hopes rise of being rescued. Then just as quickly as the conversation started the birds were gone again in a flutter of wings. For a while, Boris’s hopes remained high. He imagined himself back home in the garden, he even forgot how roughly treated he’d been at the feet of they boys, even Troy. Dream as he might, rescue never came that day nor the next. The days rolled on sunset after sunrise, night after day, all beautiful in their own right, yet largely empty.

Then late one afternoon Boris began to hear the distant crash of surf. Rising on the peak of one large wave, he could just make out a low line of trees. Then before he knew what was happening he was sliding down the front of a wave. Boris was falling, hurtling forward in a fearful rush of white water then tumbled in a whirl of bubbles. Another wave crashed into him from behind, then another, soon Boris was tumbling and turning, being tossed among the white foam. Pushed over the reef by the waves, the ocean lost its force, and he found himself floating above a world of multi-coloured coral. The gentle wind that was blowing washed him on to a beach of gritty sand. There he quietly rested as the sun began to set. The leaves of palm trees that stood just beyond the edge of the sand swayed in the breeze. After all this time of floating, he was finally stationary and resting on solid sand.

That was pretty much the end of his travels. Next morning he was found by one of the local islander boys. In a poor world lacking toys or computer games, a real ball was a joy to behold. The boy carried him home and meticulously cleaned Boris of all the algae and barnacles. He was then polished and patched before becoming the centre of play for a group of local kids. From then on every afternoon, on a rough, grass soccer field, he was tossed and kicked and soared and cheered as became their triumph or defeat. Then every night he was lovingly placed on a shelf above the little boy’s bed.

You may ask is there a moral to this tale? Not really, only suffice to say that all of life is an adventure, it is all in the way you look at things. Did Boris’s adventure change him? You will have to decide that, because after all soccer balls neither think, dream nor talk. Or do they?