Melting

Toby Peterson is 9 years old and thinks life is utterly unfair; he is a middle child and constantly being forgotten. Right now, for instance, his dad is holding the popsicle Toby had to plead and beg him to buy just out of reach. Toby can already see it starting to melt, the top layer glistening in the sun as it slowly slides down the stick onto his dad’s hand. If he can’t get to it soon, there’ll be nothing left. This isn’t the worst time he’s been forgotten (the time they left him on a ferry comes to mind), but right now it feels like the end of the world.

Greg Peterson is 39 years old and has never been forgotten on a ferry. Greg still thinks life is unfair though. When he was younger, Greg thought he’d be the hero of his own life, but he wakes up most days feeling like a minor side character. Each morning he switches off his alarm and makes it through a day of screaming kids, traffic jams and a dull ache in his back that never quite goes away, before collapsing into bed again. He hasn’t noticed that the popsicle has started to drip onto his hand, or his son bumping into his leg trying to get his attention. Instead, he is transfixed by a small plane and the plume of smoke coming from its side as it trails across the sky towards the beach.

As the plane makes its final descent, the space where it will hit the sand clears of people. They stumble outwards to form a bullseye. Everyone far enough away from the imminent crash, but close enough to want a better look, jogs forwards as the plane skids to a stop. Greg joins this rush, eyes locked on the plane as he stumbles over uneven sand and unknowingly demolishes a sand castle, his son trailing at his side, eyes on the popsicle.

A handful of people surge forward to help whilst the rest stay back, observing. Greg is one of those who stays back. He is frustrated with himself that he has not managed to get a better vantage point; he can only see occasional slivers of the plane through the crowd. He imagines another version of himself launching forward with purpose, using a firm hand to push people out of the way as he makes his way to the front. He sees himself reaching the plane and single-handedly lifting the pilot out to cheers from the crowd. He pictures his face in the paper – “Local hero saves the day”.

Greg’s been called a hero before, but not in a proper way. Sometimes he’ll receive the accolade at work when he sends a spreadsheet across to his boss. One time he managed to carry all the shopping bags in from the car in one go and his wife kissed him on the cheek and called him a hero. He didn’t feel very heroic that time, with the blood circulation being cut off from his hands and turning them a ruddy purple. The straps had cut into his skin, leaving behind freckles of burst blood beneath the surface. On the next occasion, he’d decided being a hero wasn’t worth it and made two trips instead.

Toby’s tactics to get his dad’s attention are waning. His jostling of his dad’s legs has softened to a slow bouncing rhythm that he knows won’t do anything. He’s also less invested now that the majority of his popsicle has oozed over his dad’s fingers. He’s aware that there are lots of people around them who weren’t there before. All he can see is pale legs and burnt, hairy stomachs and red and white stripes on people’s feet. Everyone’s facing the same way, so he decides to find out what’s going on and starts to wriggle through the forest of sweaty skin.

As Greg is imagining himself saving the day, a whisper passes back through the crowd. The turning of heads to pass on the message makes them look like a field of barley in a breeze. The message reaches Greg and he in turn does his bit and passes it along – “They’re trying to get the pilot out.” He feels important, a messenger keeping the masses informed. He wonders who ‘they’ are and what their qualifications are that means they are the ones attempting this.

Toby finally makes it to the front line of the crowd and for the first time sees the plane. When it was coming down and his dad was tracking it across the sky, mouth agape, Toby had been staring at his doomed popsicle and its slow, dripping descent into the sand. Toby thinks about school tomorrow and how impressed everyone will be when he tells them his story about the plane.

The front row of people is not made up of helpers. Any helpers have already stepped forward across the imaginary line which holds everyone else back. Instead, the front row is made up of people jostling for position who think their job of seeing what is happening and reporting it back to friends and family, and anyone else who will listen, is worthwhile. They are the ones on the local news – “I was there.”

Toby steps through this invisible boundary towards the plane. The adults in the front row don’t reach forward. They all believe someone else’s arm will reach out and grab this boy by the scruff and yank him back into the ranks. By the time they all collectively realise that there is no phantom arm, Toby has reached the plane.

Greg is getting fidgety from his viewpoint. He tries shuffling to the left and right to get a better angle through the crowd. He tries to stretch up onto his toes to see over the sun hats and caps, but all he can see is the smoke twirling up into the air.

Whilst the adults in the front row are looking at the plane, Toby is looking up at it. It’s from here he notices the plane is melting and goes in to inspect. The trickle of melted plane has found a course along curves and seams and is making its steady journey downwards. He wipes his finger along it and the metal feels hot from the sun. Toby doesn’t know the melting point of planes, so he looks up at one of the men trying to wrestle the cockpit open, hoping he will know why the plane is melting.

He holds out his finger to the man as proof of his find and tells him the plane is melting. The man looks down and pauses for a second. He looks at the boy and looks at his finger. He wonders what the boy could mean by melting. He wonders where the boy’s parents are. All this goes through his head before he realises what the liquid is, and connects the distinct petrochemical sheen on the boy’s finger with the plane.

Greg is getting bored, mainly because he can’t see anything good and therefore will have nothing to report. At work tomorrow it will be the only topic of conversation and when his colleagues find out he was there on the beach, they’ll ask him all sorts of questions he won’t be able to answer. Staring at a bald patch does not count as good gossip. He wonders whether he should just keep quiet about being on the beach and let one of the younger lads spin some story about what happened and save himself the effort.

Toby is still holding his finger up to the man as the trickle reaches the smoking part of the plane. There is just enough residual heat for it to ignite and the flame licks its way up towards the fuel tank. A woman in the crowd has seen it and makes an anguished yell and half falls backwards. Everyone else catches on and pushes back from the plane.

Greg hears a yell from the front line and feels the pressure of the crowd shove into him. He stumbles with the others. The smoke whirling into the air gets thicker and darker and he hears shouts of fire from the front line; he turns and runs.

The man grabs Toby’s wrist and pulls him away from the plane. Toby stumbles and struggles to keep his footing as he’s dragged away. He’s still holding out his one sticky finger with the melted plane on it.

The fuel tank explodes soon after Greg turns to run. He hears it behind him and uses his fear to propel him forwards until he reaches his wife. She is sat on a beach towel cradling their eldest and youngest, looking pale against the rainbow colours of their beach stuff. It is their youngest who looks at her dad and then at the space around him and asks where Toby is. Greg finally looks at his hand, the popsicle stick empty and his fingers sticky with syrup. He lets go and the popsicle stick falls into the sand.

Tomorrow, Toby Peterson will make it into the newspapers – “Gone, but not forgotten”.