Beyond Reality
Chapter 1: Up in the Air
"Are you going to type until your fingers fuse to that keyboard?" questions a falsely dozing man staring intently at a young woman using her well-loved laptop.
Said young woman gives a start in her seat, knocking her head against a window to the early morning sky beside her. She groans rubbing a bump swelling slowly beneath her curls of teal dyed hair. Eventually she looks at the man, a startled expression lingering on her face.
"I'm terribly sorry I woke you, sir." She says, leaving his inquiry unanswered. Sheepishly she smiles noticing he only has one eye open, emphasizing his recent awakening.
His blond brows rise in a curious manner as he asks, "You thought I was sleeping? And you still made that racket?"
"Yes, it's very inconsiderate of me, I do apologize…" She informs him bluntly, testing his strength in character, "Since it bothers you, I wish to offer a pair of earplugs. Or would you like to borrow my MP3 player? I'm sort of a writer and my creativity is soaring, it'd be heartbreaking if my fingers fused to my keyboard."
The man tenses to retort, yet before it could be heard a different woman seated on the other side of him intervenes, "There's a teenage boy behind me humming Johnny Cash songs loudly… Could I use your earplugs?"
"Sure!" The window seated young woman replies laughingly, "I was wondering where those sad vibes were coming from."
"I know! Granted he has the soul for it, but the poor boy is tone deaf... Bless his heart." The other woman says waiting, ignoring the man in the middle's rigidness.
Bent over, searching throughout her paisley backpack upon the floor, the young woman silently scolds herself for being brazen while so dangerously high up in the air. Finally after finding the correct pocket of her bag the young woman hands over a pair of earplugs to her fellow lady. She tells her, "They're new, I promise no ear wax. I carry them around for my mama. She can barely tolerate harsh sounds."
"What a good idea!" The other woman chuckles happily, a soft show of age wrinkling around her dimples.
"Please keep them. I won't ever use them where I'm going," Insists the young woman.
"Why thank you, hon. I believe I will," the older woman smiles gratefully, leaning back into her seat.
The man in the middle scowls at the young woman, huffing at her, "You must be the most annoying fleshling on this planet."
"I highly doubt that, but nice otherworldly wording. I'm totally stealing that line." She grins, instantly typing it into her computer.
The man's eyes open at that comment, their startlingly blue color making an impression on the young woman. Her fingers fly over the keys writing a quick description about him: hyper aware, but when he slept he was dead asleep… woke up angrily from a nightmare… needs a hug (doubtful that he's a hugger [gruff demeanor])… arrogant but wistful… so damn lonely… Doesn't have any bags… traveling alone… his black leather boots and jacket are badass… his yellow Henley makes him look green… his clothes are spotless… intense blue eyes… tousled pompadour blond hair… skinny…
"You need a biscuit, my fellow fleshling. You're just skin and bones and sickly pale, haven't you been taking care of yourself?" The young woman blurts out, regarding the man with honest concern.
He growls at her.
"Righty 'o then, evidently not," she says mostly to herself. Toeing open her bag she reaches down and grabs a king sized candy bar with a hefty amount of protein in it. She holds the unopened candy out to the man. He looks insulted.
"I don't eat organic slag." The man says, gritting his teeth.
"It's pretty far from organic, I assure you." The young woman states, poking the man's jacketed arm with the candy, "Please eat, you'll feel better if you do. It's nutty so you might even crack a smile, sir mister sunshine sir."
For a moment the man's lividness crackles the air, quite literally, startling the young woman again. Statically charged her hair tickles his neck, making him jerk to look her way only to see her dark blue eyes widen comically. He grows mournful, losing himself in a state of remembrance. His long fingered hands grip tightly. The young woman recognizes this and lets him be. Unnerved by her hair she twists it into to her bandette comb, calming down the free curls now atop her head. They still stretch absurdly towards the livid man as she continues on failing to fix it.
"Give me that," the man suddenly snaps, taking hold of the candy bar rustling in the young woman's busy hands. She lets him have it, blushing at her own obliviousness.
When the man does not even make an attempt to eat the candy bar, the young woman sighs in exasperation. Focusing on not feeding the grown man herself she reawakens her laptop. Once it loads she flexes her fingers, the orange polish on her nails glistening in the glare. She begins typing rather forcefully, annoying the man immensely. Soon after the young woman's second sentence ends the candy bar is swiftly devoured like the man had no enjoyment of taste at all.
The young woman growls at the man, "Ever heard of savoring things?"
"No, exactly like you having no comprehension of stealth." The man returns the growl.
"Alright, alright, I'll stop. Forgive me for wanting to remember such handsomeness for my villain that'll be swooned over in this story." She explains by pointing at the laptop screen and then asks, "So what's your problem? You've been tense ever since you sat down. Did you lose your bags?"
The man leans close and hisses in her ear, "I'm surrounded by aliens in a flight capable contraption running on a world-wide depleting energy source. The high statistics to plummeting to my holo's end and never getting off this ball of dirt is why I am tense. So my problem, fleshling, is you."
"Very well, I'll leave you alone." She says calmly, trying to relate sense with his words, "I understand you, somewhat. Your interpretation of the world reminds me of mine that I had for a while. I thought that everyone was alienated too, and yeah, no one really cares we're wasting resources just to be faster. It's awful that we take these risks. Yet we humans do. So…"
"Fleshling," the man interrupts the young woman exasperatedly.
"What, fellow fleshling?" She sneers at him.
He tilts his head back and tells her, "Shut the frag up."
"Oh, no worries, the frag is up. The frag is far up your ass for you to deal with." The young woman retorts as she saves the files on her laptop and puts it safely away in her bag. Rummaging a bit more she gets out her trusty plum purple MP3. After that she shoves her bag forward to its rightful place and sits back, sticking her earbuds in with ease. Gazing outside her current window, the twinkling lights below befit her first song's beat spectacularly. All in all she is on cloud nine. That is until an earbud magically pops out.
"What did I do now?" She sighs, turning to face the blond, stellar blue eyed man.
He asks with a melancholy look about him, "Your name?"
"Always," She answers freely, "Always Abigail Brionwell."
He touches a finger against her cheek, saying, "Always."
"Yes…?" She confirms, a bit dazed, unable to ignore him.
Without a reply, the man smirks sadly keeping his touch. Slight vibrations warm Always's skin where hers meets his which soon ceases as he flickers away.
Always does not scream, for she has dreamt of wilder things. Yet suddenly seeing the aisle woman fast asleep, and an entire plane of clueless people, she cries. The abandoned candy wrapper flutters to the floor as she exhales heavily in confusion. So hauntingly, that blue eyed man's loneliness remains imprinted on her cheek. It irritates her that she probably did not stifle such a feeling the slightest bit.
A boy across from Always on the other side of the plane catches her sight. Determination expressed clearly on his face as he reaches down to unbuckle. Always snuffs up her tears, waving at him to stop with an exaggerated grin. He stops, pointing at her, nodding up and down. She nods positively back at him, poking her nose. This brightens the boy's attitude, satisfied he resumes his previous activity of tracing his dozing father's tattooed arm.
Always chuckles, confrontation averted, and gets back to her music. Escaping blissfully into her view of the dark waking world she muses to herself,
"He's gone now. That ass just disappeared.
Wow, did that really happen? Was he even here?
I'm so insane. Home is so away.
It's all up in the air...
It's all up in the air."