Welcome to Tiny Worlds!
We’re shifting our focus to explore Mexico's eastern coast with twelve-year-old George Perez in the serialized novel: ISLA.
For longer fiction visit Stories, and for flash fiction go to Sketchbook.
January 1986
The wheels on the bus go… ka-flump, bouncing over the break between concrete road and bridge. That sound leads into a long buzz with series of incremental tick-ticks as the wheels roll over the metal grating.
Bridges make the most interesting sounds, George thinks. It reminds him of a Love and Rockets song he can’t quite remember—something with a clock-like ticking. That sound seems to follow him, a continuation of the feeling he’d had all night as he watched the buildings outside for any change in the light.
He’d barely fallen asleep when he felt the soft rub on his shoulder. Kathryn had her bag at the door. The fella was nowhere in sight. So much the better, George thought.
“I try to…” is all George catches from Kathryn as he slips on his headphones.
It feels like a crappy thing to do, but sometimes the world has to be tuned out. Sometimes he doesn’t even play music, like now—a barrier of subtle autonomy. She continues for a moment until she sees he’s not listening. He’ll have to listen at some point, but not now. She’ll want to talk about what wasn’t working, why the fella wasn’t the right one. She’ll apologize, and mean it.
But here they are: not in a car or a cab, but on a bus, bags at their feet and bundled up like alpine hikers. The rest of their belongings—just a few boxes of mostly forgotten things—will arrive later. Probably stored in the garage next to his grandparents’ Pontiac Grand Prix until… wherever next.
George scans the buildings through the big windows of the bus and wonders why the lights are on at Wrigley Field. He imagines the sharp, echoing crack of a bat—it’s only the sound of another promise splitting in half. One more added to the Rolodex.
Mom. Mother. Kathryn. As exacting as she could be about her name, that same magnifying glass got hazy with men. The fellas. They come and go, leaving mostly a memory of knee-down talks with “the little man.” George cataloged a few of them. They all start with a friendly, “buddy” or “pal” or “kiddo.”
“It’s not your fault” was by far the most frequent. George considers the serious money he’d have by betting on that one. Followed closely was, “too bad we won’t get to ______.”
George’s mind, like Kathryn’s, remembers them all as he flicks through the Mad Libs answers: see the zoo, go fishing, build a treehouse. Maybe see a game at Wrigley Field should be added to the list.
Even at his age, he knows these speeches were a sympathy ploy. After all, who wants to be rejected? Why not let fly with all the loose change you can throw at a moment?
But it was also just chest-thumping, wasn’t it? An adult male version of "See what I can do!" George thought of the chimps on Wild Kingdom—their wide mouths letting out toothy mating calls. They beat their chests for attention.
Chimps? Chumps.
George pushes out a sigh. Hot breath fogs the bus window. The world outside turns hazy as streetlights, headlights, and lit signs diffuse in the condensation. His finger reaches up to draw a shape in the mist: a long rectangle. Then a couple of triangles. Another triangle, a tail.
The airplane takes shape—its wings cast back. He adds wind in swirls racing over the cockpit. And all the while he’s thinking about that relentless clock. And Arizona. Did he really have to go? Could this trip be skipped or…
Plane assembled, he begins to outline a new shape. He breathes on the window again, expanding his canvas. The condensation from his fingertips leaves beads of water streaking in jagged patterns as the bus bumps up and down.
His knee bumps the pack. He knows it’s in there—the journal, folded map and all—pressed against a box of pencils. For a second, it feels like the whole bag is vibrating, howling at him. Like something inside it wants to get out. And, for a moment, he thinks maybe he shouldn’t have looked at the journal, fed it, after midnight. George chuckles to himself, the hot huff of air adding to his misty canvas.
He adds a fire in quick flicks, flames engulfing the tail. A marshmallow left too long on the campfire. George draws windows—far too big for an actual plane. In one, he writes HELP.
A rough map of the United States appears in his swirls—the airplane high above as he adds speed lines to it.
This plane is not going fast. It’s going down. In a hurry.
But where? Into the swamps of Louisiana? Will it skitter across the waves in the Gulf of…
George hears the plane careening, engines in a dive. With moments left to find a safe place, the pilot comes over the intercom. His calm voice crackles with just a hint of a smile: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot… it’s now or never if you want to jump out.”
He breathes at the drawing, nose to the glass, looking out to the morning and the airport just beyond. The low groan of the bus brakes cuts through the air as passengers lean in a soft sway, adjusting to the stop. George stares at the plane for a moment longer, wondering: was it going down or just waiting to be saved?
He’s not sure. Standing, he wipes the image away with his sleeve.
Music
Haunted When the Minutes Drag – Love and Rockets
Slow down there, bucko! Some of us gotta read real careful, and my lips can only go so fast
Back again to say that I'm taking my sweet time this time and loving it all the way