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Flight Of Angels
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TITLE (EDIT)
Flight Of Angels |
DESCRIPTION
Maybe it's something about airports, maybe it's flying and maybe it's something else. Check it out on your next flight.
[1,038 words] |
AUTHOR
Paul V. Fornatar |
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
After forty years of teaching school, I thought I would spend my retirement years writing. I've published five books, two novels, a teaching memoir, and two anthologies of short stories. Also tucked away in my drawer are 8 more novels, and 325 short stories, 75 have appeared in various magazines. I guess I love to write. It makes me feel young.
"Addio, Mama Mia" was the first story I submitted in my writing career. It was purchased in four days.
[March 2000] |
AUTHOR'S E-MAIL ADDRESS
PFornatar@aol.com |
AUTHOR'S OTHER TITLES (3)
A Dish Of Yogurt (Short Stories) Sometimes we assume too much, and sometimes we don't assume enough. [1,158 words]
A Family That Stays Together (Short Stories) The old bromide about the family that prays together stays together is carried to an extreme here. [895 words]
Addio, Mama Mia (Short Stories) A Priest visits his aged Mother. [1,495 words]
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Flight Of Angels
Paul V. Fornatar
Tampa International Airport hummed with post holiday business. Wilted wreaths sagging and browning at every airline ticket counter hinted at the emotional and physical feelings of the terminal workers. Teens on their ways back to Northern schools, and older sons and daughters returning home from visits to Mom and Dad imprisioned in sun filled retirement homes, lined up fifty deep at each ticket counter.
I purchased my ticket before I came down to see Mom. We had our usual nice Christmas visit with only several arguments and a few more difficult hours of ranting and raving around the plastic tree. It was my yearly penance for what every good son should do.
I hadn't slept well since I left Chicago, but now, I would soon be back to O'Hare Airport, cold weather, and sanity. The Tampa Tribune fell from my lap and as I bent to pick it up, my glasses followed onto the floor and cracked. I picked them up and placed them back on my nose. I was blind without them, and even poor sighted with them. I turned to the sports section searching for the story of the latest Chicago Bear's
defeat. My glasses had cracked in such a way as to give me a kaleidoscopic picture of a quarterback with hundreds of arms and legs surrounding him. I removed the glasses and
squinted at the picture which was of Joe Montana being tackled by a rather anemic player.
I replaced my glasses on my nose and peered at the people around me. Their faces seemed slivered but recognizable. How would I survive these spectacles until I got my extra pair at home?
Several young boys passed me and seemed almost natural with the exception of fangs jetting from their many mouths. The Picassian mothers that followed them all possessed several pairs of off centered lips and noses.I blinked and then tried to squeeze my eyes tight hoping to return to some visual normality.
It was when I looked up at the ticket counter that I saw them first.
They weren't men or women in shorts and tee shirts but naked androgynous globs. There were two of them. Two of what? They seemed as if they were almost of cloud consistency, thick,
puffy, and shadowy. They reconfigured in herky-jerky motions as if dancing to some strange new Latin American beat.
They stood on both sides of each ticket buyer as if to protect them from the other people in line. As each person asked for his ticket, the two spectral figures pulled and
pushed at the buyer without making their motions felt. I pulled my glasses off to find that the figures faded only to return when my glasses were back in place.
I sat mesmerized watching each person buy his ticket while these spirit figures lambadaed about. I hadn't had a drink since earlier in the day, plus I had a full meal since. So I wasn't seeing things. Or was I? Without the glasses--no one, with--two spectral shadows, one white the other black.
One by one, impatient people purchased their tickets. Two planes waited to be boarded, one to Chicago, the other to New York City. The shadows entwined and then unwound several times doing a strange spectral jitterbug. Their arms flung out several yards and then snapped back just as their legs did.
What were they? Were they some manifestations of good or evil, or the result of some tainted food from lunch? When the New York plane was announced, the white shadow wagged its bowed
head slowly. The black chimera flung itself from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. By this time I knew, I had to visit my doctor on my return home. I was in no pain, but my mind
seemed filled with an eerie, excited confusion.
The white phantasm stepped aside as the passengers boarded the New York plane. It seemed sad, as it tossed one of its upper limbs towards the black smoke of a thing as if trying to discipline it. The black chimera shook, seeming to laugh uncontrollably when the last passenger boarded. Then the white phantasm disappeared into the plane.
By now I realized I was in the throes of confusion caused possibly by the horrendous holiday strife I experienced with Mom. Several young college girls with healthy chests and in wealthy dress, passed me like fractured, accelerated scenes in a silent movie. I didn't think I could stand it much longer.
I sat with my eyes closed tight, waiting for the steward to call "Now boarding for Chicago." When it was called, I sat still in my seat trying to fathom what was happening to me.
I watched the couples leave through the passenger bridge. The black chimera frolicked at the door losing control of itself going from one spasm to another in every direction.
One by one, the passengers filed onto the Chicago plane until I was left alone. Maybe I should return to Mom. The black cloud gathered and flung its upper limb fifteen feet at me. It encircled my arm and pulled me out the door with it. I didn't feel its pressure, just its gentle pull.
We were the last on the plane. I had an aisle seat in the middle. The thing sat or filled the seat next to mine while it shiver, shook, and gyrated over and over again.
The Captain broke my trance by telling us that it was 18 below zero in Chicago and that we were now leaving Tampa which was 76 above. Then the attendants went through their routines for spitters, and upchuckers, for flotilla devices and side door
shutes.
Buckled in and ready to go, we rested back and waited for the beer and bag of peanuts that was sure to come. The take-off was smooth, almost unnoticed, and the pilot guaranteed a pleasant
flight at 35,000 feet. My phantasmic friend shook his adamant head "no-no-no!" over and over, faster and faster. By the time my peanuts were delivered, we were experiencing terrible turbulence. My partner next to me, no longer spastic, formed a generous shadowy thumb that he slowly and sarcastically inverted--which by the way, was in the same direction we were falling.
c.1997
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READER'S REVIEWS (3)
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"Whooooa. That was cool.( Not sarcastic.)" -- Meg.
"Surprising take on what could otherwise be just another supernaturally angled holiday story. Intriguing ghostlike characters, scary ending." -- Joan.
"Wow! Loved it, but *show,* do not tell." -- no.
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE
© 1997 Paul V. Fornatar |
STORYMANIA PUBLICATION DATE
March 2000 |
NUMBER OF TIMES TITLE VIEWED
2363
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