Paper Planes
Damian doesn’t really remember the details of when he was young.
It’s mostly images. He remembers images, sounds and colors that he finds himself gently reliving as the days pass him by, faster and faster, until he realizes a decade’s already gone by.
He no longer enjoys the luxuries of recess and naptime, and his mom doesn’t buy him new sneakers anymore, but he can’t help but feel that the spirit’s still inside him. Somewhere, he’s still a tiny child staring up at the endless sky and pretending to fly. The fascination and curiosity still captures him whenever he watches a plane glide low over the buildings in his old industrial hometown.
The music he was used to hearing in his childhood starts up again around him – the drone of jet engines and the occasional percussive, factorial clanks and smashes. They surround him now at the engineering department of the local technical institute, situated near a small apartment complex and the airport. Every time he walks into the large school building, the thought of something better, something that he could have been, is haunting and distracts him from his work. But he comes from a mediocre family -- it’s his fault he couldn’t get himself into anywhere better, right?
The doubt is left unanswered, as always, when he closes the door and heads to class. The plane taking flight in the clear sky outside the window catches his attention, and Damian suppresses his yearning for freedom.
***
A man stepped out of the airport in the small town.
“Sir, don’t forget your baggage.”
He was obviously an important man, dressed in a fine suit and talking on a fancy, silver cell phone while heading down the street into the bustling city. “Yes, sir, he was one of the executives for the flight simulation committee, I’m heading to a meeting with him at the moment…yes. See you then.” he flipped the phone shut and continued on his way, briefcase swinging as he sped up his pace.
Several people of similar disposition followed quickly after, chatting amongst themselves and throwing gestures around. They were all dressed in similar white coats with embroidered wings on the breast pocket and sleeve. The subject of their conversation was both groundbreaking and relative to a young boy zipping up his jacket and stuffing his backpack full of books a block away.
The man and his entourage didn’t notice the downcast boy enter the subway station as he followed, and didn’t pay it a second thought.
As the silver doors closed behind them, the two both went towards separate areas of the train compartments and found seats next to oblivious bystanders.
The journey of the subway through the town was slow and surreal, and the occupants of the long compartment passed time indiscriminately throwing glances around at each other and tracing intricate thoughts about engaging things like what they were going to make for dinner.
Damian glanced over at the man and all the people following him as they entered. They were strange, not in the way of how they dressed or acted, but there was some sort of unexplainable air of wisdom surrounding the oldest man, and a feeling of genuine curiosity from the youngest. A woman was reviewing a sheet of paper quietly with another man, explaining things in a way Damian would expect from a college professor or some sort of genius. His interest in the group just could not seem to diminish, and had it not been for the announcements over the subway’s intercom, he may have stared for as long as possible, trying to figure them out.
A couple of them had realized the scrutiny and glanced over at Damian as well, who turned away flustered and took out some coursework to look over. His occupation lasted about five minutes before he shook out of it and began stuffing books away in a hurry, leaving his backpack unzipped as he clumsily made his way toward the exit.
He didn’t make it far outside the station before he and the leader of the mysterious group from before collided -- literally -- and he was sputtering apologies and gathering up engineering notes.
Damian looked up to the man only to find that he was staring at something he’d dropped with a surprising fascination, completely still.
“U-um…” Damian tried, and the man looked up at him slowly, studying his face. Damian started back and frowned.
The older looking man picked up one of the pages, scanning it in silence. Damian sat across him with an awkward expression, wondering if he should say something. A small part of him was peeved and embarrassed that someone else was reading his work, which he had always found mediocre. The other white-jackets looked just as confused and irritated as he did, whispering to each other feverishly.
Finally, the older gentleman raised his head and gazed at Damian with clear, intelligent blue eyes.
"This is your work?"
"Er, yeah,” Damian mumbled, feeling uncomfortable under the man's stare.
"What's your name?" Damian paused for a moment.
"Damian," he replied after a moment's consideration. The man nodded his head, a crease of concentration forming on his forehead. He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a small card and handed it to Damian before walking off.
Damian looked down at the card in his hand and decided to put it in his pocket as he started the long trip home to his apartment.
His thoughts were filled as he reflected over the strange encounter from earlier and the content of their conversation. They must have been from some sort of organized group – a company? A school? The image of the embroidered wings came to mind and he decided there must have been some sort of connection to that and what he had been making earlier in his coursework – jet designs, his own special variation on the fuselage of the aircrafts they studied – they must know something about flight.
Perhaps this was an opportunity. Damian stopped and considered the possibilities, holding his current position of school in low regard as his imagination grew the encounter into something of a miracle. Had this person been someone really important – really imperative and influential in his field of study – this was something to be proud, something to be amazed at.
The card in his pocket seemed to feel lighter and more valuable than ever before as he continued down the street, and he vowed to call it as soon as possible and find out just what could come of this meeting. His hand unconsciously slipped inside, and he held it tightly and read it off.
Dr. Andrew Whitney
Peristera Cabal
643-328-3582
56 Scotswood Road
TA21 4SK
HOLYWELL LAKE He looked at it, confused, and wondered what kind of country he came from that the address was formatted so, and just what Peristera Cabal was.
Damian’s eyes traveled back up and forward to the rest of the way home before glancing to a nearby vending machine. Well…he was kind of hungry. He approached the large display, face lit up by the fluorescence of the machine and a ghostly, sallow look was cast over his bones.
He rummaged in the pocket of his coat before pulling out a thin wallet, and something else quickly caught by the wind. Damian gasped as he realized it was the doctor’s card just in time to see it fly away over a nearby bridge.
Damian just stood there staring in a kind of trance before lowering his strained eyes to look at his shoes. He felt his spirits float down into the more familiar melancholy and, somehow, he made his way back home, no longer caring or very aware of what he was doing.
***
Life was once again monotonous, the rhythm falling back into place for Damian as his priorities returned to school, school, and more school. He fruitlessly tried to “spice up” things by taking different routes home on some days (which frequently resulted in him getting lost and ending up cold and as far from his apartment as possible) or looking up recipes online to make the meals he missed so often a little more interesting (and hard to forget about in the dead of the night while he worked on coursework). It hadn’t really happened just as planned, thanks to his expertise in cooking, and, well, that strange pink and blue concoction of a spot on the ceiling still was unreachable. The ringing of his phone quickly shook Damian out of his reverie and he picked it up curiously.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Damian, are you still at home?” Damian recognized the voice as one of his friends from the school.
“Ashley? Well, yeah…” he responded. His conversations with Ashley usually ended up in her chastising him for being so downcast all the time, and lately after he had lost that chance opportunity, he was feeling worse than ever.
“Why don’t you come down to the pier? A lot of people from Brenton’s first semester are hanging out there.” Ashley suggested.
“…I dunno, I was kind of planning on staying home today. I have some work to fini--” Ashley cut him off before he could continue.
“Are you still hung up on that doctor guy? Damian, come on, you can’t just wait for somebody to come along and find you. This is real life now, you have to make your own name if you want to get anywhere.”
Damian sighed. “It’s just a little hard in aeronautics, you know…” they both laughed at his comment cynically and the awkwardness settled back in.
“Seriously, can’t you just come today?” she asked desperately.
Damian looked out the window before making a spontaneous decision.
“…uh, sure!” he told her, forcing some energy into his voice. The rest of the conversation was slightly blurred as Damian was lost in thoughts again.
***
The salty air breezed past the tall machinery of the pier and onto Damian’s face as he breathed in the calm. The rhythm of the ocean’s waves brought some sense of peace over his restless mind, and he reflected over what Ashley had been telling him earlier. It made sense, but it really was a daunting task. He had always been one of those people just waiting for someone else to take him along and this, though it seemed right, was so different. Such a foreign thing, being so outgoing and advocating for himself. Though, if it landed him somewhere stable, giving him a future in this field he loved so much, it would be worth it in the end. So maybe…he’d have to try. One step at a time.
Damian turned around as he heard someone approaching. Ashley, again.
“I have to show you something! Come here!” she told him in an excited voice, taking his hand and leading him back up the path. They winded through the long streets of the pier near the institute, passing the brick walls of the town’s buildings and mingling students until they came across a bulletin board with colorful flyers tacked up one over the other everywhere. Ashley pointed a finger at an official-looking poster designed for an aeronautics design competition.
Damian stared at the poster, running over the requirements in his mind. Next generation, 21st century, DC-3 type aircraft, specializing in less environmental impact than usual…
The cogs began to turn as ideas went streaming and mingling through his mind.
Final due date: April 30, 2008
2 weeks from now.
***
Damian probably wouldn’t be surprised if a week of sunny weather and rainbows suddenly appeared as he began the blueprinting of his design. Friends from his classes came over frequently to get help with their own designs and review over things before getting distracted and finding ridiculous ways to amuse themselves into the night, and laughter was a second nature of a background noise. The confidence Damian found inside himself grew more and more as he worked with them in mutual creation. The night before they finally finished everything, the feeling of solidifying pride filled up until it was about ready to burst, and they looked around at each other in a cheerful and exhausted silence.
***
Morning came with a blur of sleeplessness and the air of grounded dreams as the determined group set off to go turn in the designs at the institute. Damian’s eyes widened when he saw the panel of judges and who they were -- the doctor and the other scholars in the white coats…Peristera Cabal? Apparently he caught their attention too, for excited conversations began at his entrance. Damian looked at his friends in confusion and slight alarm at being around the elite group again. They cautiously turned in the designs, hoping for the best throughout the next day and the days after. When Damian laid down at night, he could never stop worrying over specific details of his work and anxiety piled up faster than he ever realized. It was only when exhaustion reached him that sleep broke through his constant stream of frantic corrections.
The phone rang, shaking Damian out of his dream, and his day was immediately beginning, transforming into something more as he listened to the official-sounding voice of the doctor telling him they’d accepted his design as the winner.
He was barely aware of the sudden morning, nor of the time-turning message he received until he was telling everyone else later in the day.
Through all of the congratulations and wishes of good luck, when he called his mom, it stood out above everything. He felt something when she told him to know where he’d come from before going further, and that she knew he would.
And a year later, as he watched the plane taking off in that prestigious white coat of his own, her words rang in his ears with an explosion of déjà vu.
--end.
» Kingdom of orphans
» Vanapia Hanto: Kawari Unmei
» The Prince Detective
» xxxholic chapter 182
» One million pages thread!!
» Rate that Character
» Give the person above you a nickname
» Watcha doing?
» Banned game!
» Horitsuba Gakuen
» Science and Life