Students and Stories: Elyes Can Help Them Both To Fly

Pilot, flight academy lecturer, and author, Elyes Hachicha.

Students and Stories: Elyes Can Help Them Both To Fly

With COVID19 restrictions still keeping many of us indoors and out of routine, sometimes the mind can hatch new ideas. It’s only when you can take action to implement your ideas does it have the possibility to fly. Let’s see what one clever Expat has pushed out of the nest to fly now.

Usually, I write about my own expat experiences as an American in Tbilisi. Last year I was a commuting Expat to Vilnius, Lithuania, on extended stays to lecture at a flight training academy in that city. There I met a colleague, Elyes Hachicha. He, too, is an Expat and pilot like me. He is originally from Tunisia. His family moved to France, and later Elyes moved to Lithuania to lecture at the same flight training academy as I.

Unfortunately, COVID19 has grounded many airline flights and interrupted the training of new pilots that we were working with. Elyes remains in Vilnius and I am in Tbilisi. We are all waiting for the return of the economy of air transportation and training. We are still waiting more than one year now. Meanwhile, we stay in touch on Facebook and occasionally video chat to catch up on current conditions in each of our adopted cities. Both Tbilisi and Vilnius remain with similar border restrictions, economic shutdowns, and general isolation.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Elyes, aka Fox McCloud on Facebook, had recently posted an announcement of his new book, “The Tales of Celesto: A Letter to Princess Laura”, and was just released as of April 1st, 2021. Its available for sale on Amazon as a Kindle download at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B091MDCM2T. The book is described there as follows; “The story takes us to the prosperous Kingdom of Celesto in 1484, where a young farmer, named Paul, sends secret letters to young beautiful Princess Laura, who is already established in marriage with a power and influential Duke. Will you be able to decode the content of the letters, and find the true meaning behind Paul’s messages?” Priced at only $4.99 and available instantly as a download, I felt compelled to not only support the work of my friend, Elyes, but had remembered him as having a very sharp mind when we were working together in Vilnius. I was curious and excited to see what he had created, as he had withheld any news about this project to me be prior the release of his book.

Upon first glance of my download, I could see that the electronic pages were warmly created to resemble old parchment paper with decorative borders. The font of the narrative is in a warm italic format and the recreated letters between Princess Laura and Paul are in cursive. I have always enjoyed the texture of good physical paper and binding, along with a print that is easy on the eyes. Although this is an e-book, the extra steps taken to present this story with embedded puzzles on simulated parchment with calligraphy is much appreciated and pleasant to look at.

At only forty-two numbered pages it’s a quick read. However, to discover the encrypted messages in each of the five personal letters, it’s best to have a printer available to provide hard copies on which to make pencil marks for key words and characters that form the hidden messages. In fact, one letter contains an origami that must be folded and examined to discover its secret message.

I must admit that I was a little uncertain on how to figure out the clues. Each of the five personal letters used a different approach, so that even if you figured out one message, each of the following four letters presented a new challenge for the reader to discover the hidden message.
Fortunately, Elyes has provided solutions in the back of the book. I found it rewarding to enjoy the intrigue and the genius of the encryption that went into the content, not to mention the visual presentation discussed earlier. This publication is very affordable and convenient to download on your favorite electronic device that supports a Kindle application. Even if you don’t have a printer available, you can make screenshots of the letters and markup your images electronically. Only the one origami is a bit more challenging to decipher on a screen, but not impossible with some imagination. I highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys solving puzzles. Even if you jump to the solutions found in the back if you can’t figure it out for yourself, it’s still enjoyable to marvel at the clever engineering of the encryption used in each of the five personal letters. Elyes even added a the announcement of a bonus hidden puzzle amongst the pages at the conclusion of the book.

The two takeaway points of my writing about my Expat friend Elyes and his new e-book are: First, Elyes tells me that this endeavor helped keep his mind occupied with positive creative forces during this time of COVID induced socio-economic dysfunction. Second, it provides hope of a new income stream that can be derived from working at home while waiting for in-person employment opportunities to return. It provides inspiration to all of us, if not just entertainment. Elyes hinted that he is currently writing another e-book that is continuing to keep him occupied. Although different from his first, it too, contains the need to understand a profound message hidden in the surface story. I am looking forward to its arrival.