A Pie in the Sky, And I'm Starving

Flash Fiction #5

The summer is hot and heady and strung with life. There is mischief in this boy’s bones, he knows that, but he doesn’t care, his mom’s cautionary words wringing out of him like water spilling from scrunched laundry, in one ear, out the next. There is mischief, he thinks, and it is good mischief, enough to make you smile a whole long goddamned day. His heart pumps from the sheer adrenaline of it all, threatening to burst out at the seams, but it doesn’t, it cannot, it must not. His fingers could get cut on the old, loose wires of the chain link fence—they’re soft and supple, the stuff young boys are made of, and they should be sanctified. That’s what mom would say, at least, and as Harold knows by now, mom isn't always right. So instead, he crouches and crawls through the hole, under the sign with big, bold, red letters saying MILITARY PROPERTY - KEEP OUT. It’s an order, trickled down from on top, and for Harold, it practically begs to be broken.

He plants each foot one after the other, faster than even he can register, dirty green-striped converses kicking up the dust and sand of this strip of lonely road. Here’s the spot, he thinks, here’s where everything fades away. Here’s the big, gaping hole where you get to feel safe. Feel free to climb down, as the sounds of your mom, your brothers, your teachers fade like paint washed off concrete walls. Climb down, wrap your arms around your legs and listen close, boy, and you might just hear the jets sing.

There’s miasma here, differing smells: oxidized fuel, itchy and crude, and the bloody tang of iron. But all of that? It’s just window-dressing. Look up to the sky, boy, and see the future spread like a tapestry. Harold bears witness, neck rested on a hairy patch, arms clasped around his little legs like a supplicant sat on the floor of the temple. Star by star by star by star, he counts all of them down as they blink and twinkle in and out of existence, each of them tiny heartbeats pulsing across the body of the cosmos, firing hot-gas synapses that touch asteroid nerve endings. Each of them is a candle hung in suspension, and one day, he knows he’s going to be up there with them, no matter what all the stupid adults say, no matter what conventions and traditions instruct him to do, no matter how many times mom grounds him.

And as he lays there, he sees his body rise and fall with the tide. He sees himself, at once him but also not, domino-mask wearing, crime-fighting, space-faring, Flash-Gordon-buzzing. Inhale. Exhale. Fist raised, chest puffed like the big bad wolf. Now he’s Harvoldgun the Ferryman, in Galleon Fifteen where hyper-scrivener zoom past and saintly screwdrivers sing with creative lightning, then he’s on Wallity XXI where the monsters are lizard-men come to take the plains swept by a thousand red suns, then when all’s said and done, he walks past the tanned bodies strewn like fallen leaves in autumn, and he stands at the parapet, boots on the ground - until they aren’t. Harvoldgun takes a breath, and inside that lone inhale he holds galaxies, and he holds joy - until it bursts, until he flies weightless, listless, until the G-forces stop tugging at him, until all that’s left is that pretty black gap between all the colorful circles there ever were.

And behind him is the vast blackness, like a dark shroud wrapped over everything, where things in the far sectors seem small and lonely, like girls and boys left in their rooms, rainfall smacking against their bedroom windows in mad droves. They’re the same candles he saw all those years ago back when he was a kid with those dirty converses on the lone tarmac smelling jet oil and itchy dust, the same candles that enter and exit, flickering endlessly, incandescent fireflies in dark hurricanes. There’s something interminable to be found in a journey like this, and as he soars, he feels his mistress, he savors her touch, devours her love, welcomes her asteroid kisses and gas-ball fingers, her arms made of soothing spacetime curvature, borne out of Higgs-Boson fields, and if he could stay here until the end of time, a spaceway sixgunner shooting down space fleets until the end of everything there ever was, he would.

Then ground control calls. Head back to base, Ferryman Harvoldgun. Leave Athralta in the docking bay and cash out for the night. But don’t stay away too long.

The stars burn quiet, quiet, smile of the night night cutting a lunar swath, as Harold sleeps by the tarmac, dreaming, hoping.