Earth Rising To Meet Me
Mar. 22nd, 2009 01:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purple_penHe steps up, feels his boot graze the rock, and knows he should have stepped left. His fingers scrape over bare rock, then he’s falling, back and over, sky, rock, sky, rock, until he slams hard onto the platform he climbed off not fifteen minutes before.
It feels like a lot further going down than it did going up.
He lands on his back, and he knows enough not to move. He lies still, watching a beetle move from left to right across his field of vision, tracking it as far as he can moving only his eyes, and waits for the pain to settle from its current full-body thud.
He registers his pack, crushed between the rock and his body, and thinks ruefully of the compass in there. Air Force issue, but even that’s probably not built to withstand his entire body weight on it, and now he’ll have to explain why he needs a replacement.
He takes a deep breath and he’s definitely got broken bones somewhere, because that hurts. When he moves his left arm and has to fight not to throw up, he decides maybe he won’t get up yet. Cautiously, he turns his head to look at the sky – he’s not sure how he’d know if he’d broken his back, but nothing crunches, which he takes as a good sign.
*
Way up above, so far that he’ll need binoculars to make out what it is, a bird spirals on an air current. He lies still, watching it, and thinks about aeroplanes, fighter jets, watching them manoeuvre in training flights. He doesn’t remember noticing, then, how graceful they were, too caught up in looking for any tiny error in the flight, the plane, but now his mind’s providing pictures to match the bird, so smooth, everything he didn’t see before.
He closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them again, not letting himself remember anything else.
*
He filed a report at the site office when he started, with a predicted time of return, and a neatly marked map of his route: six mile walk through the valley, up the peak, then down and back again. The report says back by five, but they won’t start looking for him until at least six.
That’s four hours away.
*
Daniel was in his training class at the RAF College, and he wanted to fly more than anything else, already had his pilot’s license and was just waiting for RAF training. They were 21, right out of uni, and they joked about him prepping Daniel’s plane for heroics: Batman and Robin, and they never agreed on who was who, or Bond and Moneypenny, if that didn’t make one of them a woman. Partners in crime, any way they phrased it, and a drunken celebration when they completed that went just a little further than it should have done.
*
The bird’s still there, and maybe getting a little lower, losing its thermal, or just letting itself drop. He’s been hang-gliding a few times, knows about thermals and silence and the wide blue sky. All the things Daniel talked about with passion, loop-the-looping, laughter bubbling wild in his headset.
He needs to get down; there’s an emergency phone at the bottom of the peak, but when he tries to stand up, everything swims, and he fights the urge to throw up. He can’t afford to now. He tries to take shallow breaths, but even that’s starting to hurt.
The bird – or maybe it’s something else, human, and higher than he thinks – glides, long and slow and straight, never getting any nearer.
*
Daniel went to learn to fly fighters, and he worked his way through ground crew postings until his team belonged to him, not the other way round. They were good, and he was the best amongst them, telling the pilots what was wrong with their flights, when it was the plane and when it was the pilot, his words echoed by their senior officers. It was a skill, one that was valued, and everyone knew it, voices in his headset all day with laughing questions and rueful praise.
*
He grits his teeth, holds his injured arm close, and pushes himself up until he’s sitting against the rock face he just climbed. He’s got bandages in his pack, but there’s no way he’s getting that off now, so he rips the hem of his shirt instead and uses that to strap his arm against his chest, tight enough that it won’t move.
Then he leans over and throws up.
*
An MSc in aeronautical engineering got him promoted and reassigned to the test flight crew. Most of it was standard, new engines and improved wing designs, and there was nowhere that an ability to spot a flaw in a flight was more useful.
Maybe once a year, they’d roll out something completely new, sleek and black, the pilots raving over the handling and the speed, stroking the line of the body while his crew tried to work.
*
Going down is easier than going up, but he’s still slipping, and every slide makes him gasp for breath that just makes the pain worse. He’s on the most popular route, but it’s Monday afternoon, and he’s not betting on anyone coming the other way to find him.
The gravel shifts under his feet and he almost goes down, grabbing a sapling at the last moment, not sure he’ll make it back up again. The world greys out and when it comes back he can see the bird again, definitely lower but still too far away for him to identify; it must have caught another thermal, spiralling gracefully down, down, down.
*
Daniel emailed every week, amusing stories from the barracks, half-joking complaints about his plane, and nothing about what he did in it when he was in the air.
Daniel emailed every week for months, and then for four weeks he didn’t. Everyone said missing, never said dead, until they found him; then they said killed in action, but everyone knew he’d used his gun.
*
It’s hot, even well past midday; his canteen’s in his pack, every breath hurts, his vision’s grey and he thinks he’s lost. Things look different going down from going up, but he’s sure he didn’t pass these trees before. He leans back against them anyway, just for a minute, just to catch his breath and get his bearings. As long as he’s going down, he’s OK.
*
After Daniel, it didn’t come so easily. He stopped seeing things he’d seen easily before, and maybe started seeing things he shouldn’t have.
He was cleared of all part in the accident, but he still dreams of the sleek black prototype, spinning down into flames.
*
He’s back on the ground, looking up at the sky again. It’s got dark, or maybe it’s going to rain, but he can still see the bird, gliding again, closer and closer as he lets his eyes shut, blocking it all out.
*
He’s been in free fall for years now; it’s a relief to finally hit the ground.
It feels like a lot further going down than it did going up.
He lands on his back, and he knows enough not to move. He lies still, watching a beetle move from left to right across his field of vision, tracking it as far as he can moving only his eyes, and waits for the pain to settle from its current full-body thud.
He registers his pack, crushed between the rock and his body, and thinks ruefully of the compass in there. Air Force issue, but even that’s probably not built to withstand his entire body weight on it, and now he’ll have to explain why he needs a replacement.
He takes a deep breath and he’s definitely got broken bones somewhere, because that hurts. When he moves his left arm and has to fight not to throw up, he decides maybe he won’t get up yet. Cautiously, he turns his head to look at the sky – he’s not sure how he’d know if he’d broken his back, but nothing crunches, which he takes as a good sign.
*
Way up above, so far that he’ll need binoculars to make out what it is, a bird spirals on an air current. He lies still, watching it, and thinks about aeroplanes, fighter jets, watching them manoeuvre in training flights. He doesn’t remember noticing, then, how graceful they were, too caught up in looking for any tiny error in the flight, the plane, but now his mind’s providing pictures to match the bird, so smooth, everything he didn’t see before.
He closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them again, not letting himself remember anything else.
*
He filed a report at the site office when he started, with a predicted time of return, and a neatly marked map of his route: six mile walk through the valley, up the peak, then down and back again. The report says back by five, but they won’t start looking for him until at least six.
That’s four hours away.
*
Daniel was in his training class at the RAF College, and he wanted to fly more than anything else, already had his pilot’s license and was just waiting for RAF training. They were 21, right out of uni, and they joked about him prepping Daniel’s plane for heroics: Batman and Robin, and they never agreed on who was who, or Bond and Moneypenny, if that didn’t make one of them a woman. Partners in crime, any way they phrased it, and a drunken celebration when they completed that went just a little further than it should have done.
*
The bird’s still there, and maybe getting a little lower, losing its thermal, or just letting itself drop. He’s been hang-gliding a few times, knows about thermals and silence and the wide blue sky. All the things Daniel talked about with passion, loop-the-looping, laughter bubbling wild in his headset.
He needs to get down; there’s an emergency phone at the bottom of the peak, but when he tries to stand up, everything swims, and he fights the urge to throw up. He can’t afford to now. He tries to take shallow breaths, but even that’s starting to hurt.
The bird – or maybe it’s something else, human, and higher than he thinks – glides, long and slow and straight, never getting any nearer.
*
Daniel went to learn to fly fighters, and he worked his way through ground crew postings until his team belonged to him, not the other way round. They were good, and he was the best amongst them, telling the pilots what was wrong with their flights, when it was the plane and when it was the pilot, his words echoed by their senior officers. It was a skill, one that was valued, and everyone knew it, voices in his headset all day with laughing questions and rueful praise.
*
He grits his teeth, holds his injured arm close, and pushes himself up until he’s sitting against the rock face he just climbed. He’s got bandages in his pack, but there’s no way he’s getting that off now, so he rips the hem of his shirt instead and uses that to strap his arm against his chest, tight enough that it won’t move.
Then he leans over and throws up.
*
An MSc in aeronautical engineering got him promoted and reassigned to the test flight crew. Most of it was standard, new engines and improved wing designs, and there was nowhere that an ability to spot a flaw in a flight was more useful.
Maybe once a year, they’d roll out something completely new, sleek and black, the pilots raving over the handling and the speed, stroking the line of the body while his crew tried to work.
*
Going down is easier than going up, but he’s still slipping, and every slide makes him gasp for breath that just makes the pain worse. He’s on the most popular route, but it’s Monday afternoon, and he’s not betting on anyone coming the other way to find him.
The gravel shifts under his feet and he almost goes down, grabbing a sapling at the last moment, not sure he’ll make it back up again. The world greys out and when it comes back he can see the bird again, definitely lower but still too far away for him to identify; it must have caught another thermal, spiralling gracefully down, down, down.
*
Daniel emailed every week, amusing stories from the barracks, half-joking complaints about his plane, and nothing about what he did in it when he was in the air.
Daniel emailed every week for months, and then for four weeks he didn’t. Everyone said missing, never said dead, until they found him; then they said killed in action, but everyone knew he’d used his gun.
*
It’s hot, even well past midday; his canteen’s in his pack, every breath hurts, his vision’s grey and he thinks he’s lost. Things look different going down from going up, but he’s sure he didn’t pass these trees before. He leans back against them anyway, just for a minute, just to catch his breath and get his bearings. As long as he’s going down, he’s OK.
*
After Daniel, it didn’t come so easily. He stopped seeing things he’d seen easily before, and maybe started seeing things he shouldn’t have.
He was cleared of all part in the accident, but he still dreams of the sleek black prototype, spinning down into flames.
*
He’s back on the ground, looking up at the sky again. It’s got dark, or maybe it’s going to rain, but he can still see the bird, gliding again, closer and closer as he lets his eyes shut, blocking it all out.
*
He’s been in free fall for years now; it’s a relief to finally hit the ground.
