From that, Saint - Exupery spun a fanciful, faintly ethereal fable about a downed
airman who finds himself face - to - face with a curious, blond - haired
young boy who claims to be the sole inhabitant of a distant asteroid (# B - 612), and who regales the pilot with tales of the interplanetary travels that eventually brought him to earth.
Bluhm's
younger brother, who had also been an
airman during World War II, was shot down over Germany; his own state of survival must have aroused conflicted feelings in him.