Cloud Chaser

Cloud Chasers

    Connor was dreaming of flying.  He felt the air slick through his outstretched fingers and he was happy.  In a world of tan and gray the sky offered a view of a different hue.  His jacket whipped against him wildly and his old goggles let in tiny air pockets, cooling his sweaty face.  In the sky he was free and away from all of the horrible things down below.  It was all so real until he heard a noise outside of his dream. 

He woke up suddenly just before light, feeling an immediate dryness in his throat, his tongue a dead slug in his mouth.  He sat up in his hovel and reached for his steel water bottle.  He felt how little water was inside and only drank enough to moisten his mouth and lips, barely any water actually making it to his stomach.  He felt like something was close to him and was staring at him.  He jerked his head towards the hovel’s only window and saw movement in the moonlight.  Whatever it was quickly escaped up and over a dune, it was time for him to move on.

    It had been thirty years since the paranoia of the world had risen from the ground of the individual countries all the way up into the sky, and then back down onto people who didn’t know all too much about world politics.  In total, ninety six percent of the world’s drinkable water had evaporated or been contaminated after all of the explosions.  Some people drank the dirty water but they weren’t around to explain why you shouldn't.  There were a few small creeks and wells in the central United States, but those places quickly turned into cesspits of fences, violence, and fear. Like his father before him he preferred the eastern coast.  He wasn’t sure exactly where on the map he was, but his father had once told him that the further north you go, the fewer poisonous bugs and snakes there were.  If he had to guess, he was somewhere in Virginia, a sweet spot.  

    What made this place so nice was the way the tides and winds blew from the ocean onto the land.  The water called to him constantly, his thirst both physical and aspirational.  Occasionally enough water would evaporate from the ocean and rise to the sky, pure, uncontaminated, and waiting to be harvested by someone daring enough to reach for the clouds.

    Connor wasn’t alive when the explosions happened, but his father spoke of gadgets and life accessories called electronics that were now just pieces of plastic and glass.  What still remained was more archaic, but still highly technical; combustion.  

    One of the last things his father showed him was how a turboprop engine, and how life worked.  You pour gas in, the gas is pressurized, the pressure causes a fiery explosion, and then the engine exhales.  When his father died three years ago, he was forced to become the gas, the pressure, the fire, and often had to remember to exhale.  

    It was still dark when he walked out of his hovel onto the dune and makeshift runway made of pallet wood.  It was a good day for cloud chasing, the small tufts of gaseous liquid drifting above him.  His hut was just behind a dune that protected him from high tide, the yellowed grasses clinging to the sand, getting moisture from somewhere deep below.  He walked to the back of his home to find his three wheeled contraption that consisted of a duct taped propeller and overhead wing, a small cushioned seat he stole from a life raft, and several five-gallon buckets with the openings covered in a tight mesh.  It was a solid machine, but it was showing its age after being used every week since before he was born.  

    He began to check the fuel gauge when the hair on the back of his neck went up, he was being watched again.  He tried to look unaware, searching for movement in his peripheral vision.  A head dipped down below a dune to his left and that was all the warning he needed. 

He remained aloof, screwing the gas cap back on and getting into his seat.  He flipped a switch and the engine grumbled into a start, shaking the frame of the plane.  He needed at least ten seconds to let it warm up but he wasn’t so sure if he had that kind of time.  He scooped a handful of sand into each hand and put his goggles on.  As he pushed the throttle up and kicked with his feet to get the wheels moving, they made their move.  The fear grew in him as he felt them approaching him, and he breathed in, it fueled him.  He wheeled around to the left and blindly threw sand into the face of a terribly sick man who brandished a knife.  The man reeled back, grabbing at his face and spitting sand while his friend ran up on Connor’s blindside and bashed the back of his head with something solid.  His ears were ringing and all of his focus was on the pressure in his head, he couldn’t feel his body.  He threw his head back with all his might, slamming into the man's chest and feeling the explosive breaking of half healed ribs against his skull as the man stumbled and fell back.  Nausea overtook him and he rolled over onto his stomach and used the only tool he had left, pouncing and grabbing the man by the shirt collar and opening his mouth, exhaling his vomit onto the man’s face.  The man screamed through the puke, “oh god please oh Jesus”, as he scrambled out from under Connor and back into a dune.  Connor dragged himself back into his seat and kicked off three more times until the shoddy propeller did the rest of the work.  

He began to skim over the sand, the buckets slamming around and the propeller chopping, making a terrible noise.  He continued to rise up and was almost five feet off the ground when a horrible pain burst in his side, causing him to look down.  The blinded man was running after him with a fully outstretched arm, swiping and stabbing his leg and seat.  The man focused momentarily and stabbed precisely into Connor’s thigh, lodging the knife in him.  Blood dripped down onto the man and he instinctively opened his mouth like a goldfish, wanting the moisture.  The man dropped the knife and made one final lunge at the plane, missing the frame but gripping the rope that held the buckets.  The plane continued to climb and now the man was dangling as they reached the ocean, his feet splashing and skimming along the water.  Connor felt the plane was tilting back, the propeller pointing up to the sky.  The weight of the man would drag both of them down into the ocean, destroying everything.  He screamed, feeling the gas and building up the pressure in his head quickly, then ripped the knife out of his leg, turning and cutting at the old rope.  The blood from the knife soaked into the rope and the crazed man began sucking it as Connor furiously cut.  The man came to, realizing what was happening and screamed, grabbing with one hand at Connor as the rope snapped, causing the man to skip like a stone 3 times in the deep ocean water.  The plane jerked from the adjustment and almost through Connor over.  He gripped both sides of the frame and let the plane balance out, reaching over a hundred feet over the water.  

He was in the air, the world below him wanting to take from him, wanting his blood, his everything.  He pressed his hand against his wounds and grimaced.  He’d have to find a place to land along the coast, but the plane was loud and sound traveled far in an empty world.  He leaned the plane to the left, looking towards the coast and further inland.  Small specks of light were moving towards the beach, and seemed to follow his trajectory.  He needed to land, but knew what waited for him there.  The sun lazily rose over the ocean and he released the pressure from his wounds.  He stared at the sunrise and watched the fuel gauge very slowly move towards E.