June 29th, 2009
Approximately 1:24 p.m.
"Volunteers, get ready for takeoff!"
My muscles clench when I feel the nose of the plane tilt upwards, the wheels lifting from the earth. I didn't need Brutus's overzealous announce to know we're in the air.
We're flying. Whoops and yee-hawws climb over the road of the turbines. The kids—well, all the kids but me—are having a blast and we haven't even gotten halfway there.
I feel too light and vulnerable for this, and I'm not even the smallest one here. The hamsters are just teens, younger than me, and probably weigh less than I do, even with brawny legs and patched fur coats. The frogs breathe in excited exhales that blow up the bottom of their lips. Compared to me, they're just bags full of air. How can they be so chill about this?
On a normal flight, the plane would've smoothed to a horizontal position after a short while. The cabin has windows on either side, but without a way to climb the walls, I can't see outside. Not being able to watch our assent is somehow even more unnerving. The plane trembles, and feels like thunder against the plane floor, under my body. A little turbulence isn't anything to sweat about. But we're going straight through the clouds, rocketing through the atmosphere.
I focus on Margalo, and her words echo back to be. Everything's gonna be alright. You'll see.
It wasn't a trick. This isn't some con. She's really got me to live out one of my childhood dreams. But there's a brand new visceral dread that's taken the place of the moral dread. I can't get enough breath and there's only so much oxygen in here. I don't get queasy on amusement park rides or bad smells, but something about this will do it.
Never thought I'd ever be so grateful to miss breakfast.
It feels like we're climbing for hours, though the stress is probably dragging out the minutes. The plane is barely straight enough that we don't roll to the back door in a heap but I can't wait for the moment we finally reach the peak.
I don't feel Godly. In fact, I feel just about as mortal as I've ever felt in my life. I can't remember the last time I felt so small.
The sun streaks across the floor and into my eyes. It's like we're about to meet the sun. My imagination starts working against me, and I think of what it might be like to disintegrate. For the entire plane to burn up and turn to ash long before we see earth again. Nothing left of us or the plane. Not even floor with a burn mark shaped like a mouse scared outta his wits. Nothing to show for my life but a hospital record back home with a dozen surgeries from living a world made for giants, and an endless bucket of instances where luck saved me.
And just as I wonder if this could be the day the pail runs dry, I feel it. The shift hums through my body, bones and blood. The plane's dropping, and the force is making me lighter. pulling me up from the floor. Slowly. I breathe in and out and look straight down, watching my arms stretch out beneath me. It's magical and yet, there's this innate reluctance to trust this phenomenon that allows me not to fall. So my limbs stay stretched towards the floor. I see the outline of the shadow the cabin lights make of my torso, until only my hands have contact with the ground. And then just my fingers. And then with a sudden motion, the tips of my fingers kiss off the floor.
In a matter of seconds, I've become totally weightless. A nervous cry passes my lips.
I turn my head—it feels like slow motion—and see the other animals are rising from the ground in various states of progress. The heavier animals like the cats leave the ground at the same time I do. The lighter ones, the frogs, the hamsters, me, Margalo—
Margalo.
She's no longer in arms reach. She's left the floor, upright and is practicing slow, steady wing flaps.
She looks majestic, like a phoenix. Minus the flames. "It's so weird!" She shouts at me. "I'm-I'm in the air, and my wings aren't even doing anything!"
"Atta girl, feathers!" Brutus cries. The great mastiff weaves around us with the same casually controlled gait he has on earth. Makes sense. He's learned the art of space walking-air swimming?-long ago, and uses it to weave through the animals, making sure everyone is okay. "Birds always got mixed reactions to this. Don't get frustrated, now. Just let the drop do its thing!"
But as soon as he says this, my body feels heavier. We've reached the end of the first parabola, and are laid on the floor, whenever we've traveled. I land on my side, eased down like a feather. Margalo is laying flat on her back, tossing a laugh up to the ceiling. There's a handful of parabolic arcs on this flight, and the next instance of free floating won't be long, so I guess there's no point in getting up.
Sunlight filters in from one of the small windows on the side of the cabin, and glints across the edge of her goggles. She looks blissful. Like all the troubles that plague her on earth are down there on earth, where they can't reach her.
The animals around us are still attempting conversation, many of them having to shout to be heard, less they're talking in each other's ears. Some try to get up, back on their feet, but the jerky movement of the plane discourages it. The black kitten wobbles on his feet and almost immediately tumbles over. With a meowed cry of frustration, he pushes himself over so he's on his stomach. It's pitiful, and adorable.
The hamsters don't seem to have as much of a struggle. They get onto their back legs and clasp paws as they cross the cabin floor, moving towards Brutus with purpose in step.
I remember the knife one of the hamsters left in the red tray, and my blood runs cold. I don't know what business those punks would have with messing with our flight instructor, but their smirks and confidence gives me all kinds of feelings of wrong. "Brutus," I start. But I can barely hear myself. I gotta get closer. I feel the ground, getting to my knees without incident. But already I can tell, walking's gonna be a problem. "Brutus!"
I throw my head back as I shout, but it's too late. When they reach him, Blue Bandana starts speaking. Brutus tips his head their way, and he says something just quietly enough I can't hear over the engine and the noise in the room. To my surprise, Brutus turns his head back to the leader, and nods.
What?
Of course, Brutus stands up right in the middle of this incline, with more ease than he has any right to. With the hamsters clinging onto his back, he marches to a clearing in the middle of the floor. Before I can fathom what they might be up to, the rush begins again. My stomach hitches, and I watch the animals around me rise into the air once more, like we've all been chosen for the rapture.
With Brutus's help, the hamsters have set themselves up to do cartwheels. Weightless, floating, cartwheels. They take turns, one floating upright while the other spins perfect circles in the air, arms outstretched. It reminds me of that episode of the Wildboyz with Wee Man Acuna and the rest of the crew in Russia. George would sneak the show on when Mom wasn't home. Half the fun of the show and other programs Mom prohibited us from watching was the secret of having watched it behind their backs, anyway. Sometimes Dad watched some of it with us, though he did peel out of the room when Steve-O started blowing floating barf bubbles.
I wonder if they hadn't seen that episode, too. And something about that question brings a chuckle out of me. I haven't met any of these guys until today, and yet we just might have seen the same TV show. The hams aren't exactly the troublesome goons I thought they were-or, well, maybe they are. I don't know what their life on Earth is like, but I just can't imagine they've spent their childhood playing soccer, or learning how to juggle. Regardless, we've had similar experiences that drove us to wanna be here today, and that gives us common ground.
For the first time since we arrived, I'm smiling. I've never quite felt nostalgic until this moment. For Dad. For George, when we were still considered close. I miss my childhood. I miss when life was simple. But it's different from what I felt earlier. I'm not bitter about it being over anymore. I'm just glad it happened. I'm glad I got to be George's brother. I'm lucky to be where I am, who I am, right now.
I try to reorient myself to a vertical stance, which is harder to do than it sounds. With nothing to push up from, I have to force my body to curl backwards, then throw my legs out from under me, like I'm gonna sit.
I think about crossing my legs a floating statue of a meditating Buddha. "Hey—hey Margalo! Check this out!"
But that smile I had drops when I find her. On the left hand corner of the cabin, near the ceiling, Margalo's talking with the pair of adult cats. The Sanjays. Time for the small talk we couldn't manage on Earth, I guess. Even if the awkwardness of anti-gravity gives us a thin layer of safety, I still have to work up my nerves before I approach.
The temperature controlled air has made the old sweat cold, icy against my skin. I draw my arms over one another, swimming towards them in the steadiest, least threatening motion I can manage.
As I near, the calico turns to me, studiously. "Ah. This would be the mister then, yes? Stuart, is it?"
"Uh… yes. Hi." Instinctively, I stop. But stopping mid-air is not the same as stopping on the ground. "Nice… to meet you..." I flip, and this time I've overshot, my body's facing the other way, upside down. "Oh! Um… sorry…"
"Don't worry about it." He throws his paw back the same way a person would a hand. "Anti-gravity isn't much of a manners maker, is it? I dare say we're all finding that out." He's larger than his partner, but seems to be maintaining control much easier. When he's not adding gestures with his paws, he's got them pressed pad-up towards the ceiling, his poofy tail flicking behind him. His confidence in this environment nearly matches Brutus's. "My name is Colin, and the bumhole in the air to my left belongs to Sanjay."
"Ayyyy, wassup," says the black cat, turning his paws up at me, doing finger guns the best he can without thumbs. Not the best attempt at a Jersey accent I've heard, but I don't think I'd find it an easy impression to whip out of nowhere, between flailing around upside down, looking for something to latch onto. He points his tail downward to cover his backside, but stays with his head pointed near the floor. "Didn't think we'd run into a couple o' New Yorker's out here."
"Hold on." Despite my better judgment, I reach across the gap of personal space and take hold of his paws. Margalo catches on right away, and together, with her taking his right, we manage to pull the skinny, black cat in a midair somersault, turning him until he's upright next to Colin. Turning me upright as well.
"Cheers," he says to us.
I force a grin, and while I appreciate the thanks, I try to put some distance between us, overwhelmingly conscious about his claws. The cats are an interesting pair. Almost as if... "You two don't mind if I ask: You two aren't…" I realize almost immediately what a stupid question I'm about to ask. From the smirk on her face, and if we really do know each other well enough, I'm positive Margalo knows, too.
I was nearly under the impression that the cats were related, much like the other parties. Now I realize why that idea didn't rub me right. Their behavior definitely indicates a couple. A long term one, too, by the sound of it.
I'm careful to keep my orientation so I can make up a new question with the respect of eye-contact. Or at least try to. "Uh. You two aren't… from the states, are you?"
"My owner is a traveling photographer, and her husband-that's how we met-comes along. Been overseas back and forth hundreds of times, dreadful as cargo space is."
"Ever wonder what it's like, stuffed in the overhead with heart pills and contraband?" Sanjay asked with a snort. "Try Delta."
"We happened to be stopped in town for a wedding," Colin went on. "It's a big country club affair. Some oil tycoon's great great granddaughter's or something's three month's late, and now she and the sod are getting tied. Horses and wine and seems like a lot of coin to waste on an oops child, but who are we to judge? Anyway, we overheard this adventure, and thought, eh? Not like us old men are going to be around forever. Might as well enjoy what the world is like from above while we can."
"Sounds as good a reason as any," Margalo offered.
"You'll forgive us if we were to ask a question of my own, then? Ow!"
"Our own. Knobhead." Colin had elbowed his skinny partner in the ribs, in a way that almost looked affectionate. But even in the slow motion of zero gravity, it did look like it stung. "It was my question. Don't be stealing the credit. "
"Well, I made it worse!"
"Either way," Colin says to us. "Might as well confront us both as the shameless gossips we are."
"Uh." I look at Margalo, who just smiles back at me. Gossip? Does this have anything to do with why everyone back at the hangar was whispering around us? I turn back to the cats. "Sure. Shoot."
"Well, it's just that… we've seen a lot of things in our time. And we've never…" His eyes drift from mine, and he spends more than an agonizing moment on my sneakers.
It's a look I'm more familiar with than I'd like to be. Back at the hanger, I was positive the cats were looking at us with food on the mind. I feel stupid to only realize now that that's not the case.
We're an oddity. Well, at least I am. Margalo may have her complexities, but can pass for a regular bird. I'm a mouse dressed like a headless model from Tommy Hilfigre, spends three hours on the toilet if I eat too much cheese, and reeks of humanity.
"That is to say," Colin finishes, speaking in Margalo's direction instead. "You two are so… different." Now she's looking at me. "How did you meet, anyway?"
Oh, dear. My mouth parts, and my tongue feels dry. "Oh… it's… not that interesting of a story."
"Sure, sure," Sanjay says, rolling his eyes.
"He's not wrong," Margalo said, a wing to the wall for stability. She looks calm, but a frown tugs at the ends of her beak. "It's just that I don't know if you want to waste your time up here on that."
"Now, you must understand, we're not judging," the calico comes to Margalo's aid. Even though he's a stranger, and a cat, he rests his unused paw on Margalo's shoulder in a way that's practically motherly. "We're just curious about what has brought you two together. That is to say, you two…" he suddenly points at me with his paw, her eyes wide. My heart skips a beat. But if he has claws, they're retracted, or maybe removed. I hope for Margalo's sake it's the former. "Are mates, yes?"
"Mates?!" My choked answer comes out just as we start sinking. My feet scramble beneath me, and I sublime onto my knees. The plane pulls upward, and I feel like I'm in an elevator, the force humming through my feet, my knees. My hands.
Mates.
Margalo… and me?
"Close enough," Margalo says.
My cheeks are warming under the fur. "Y-yeah." I guess.
"Hate you to think we were judging you in some way. The thing is, Colin and I get our looks from time to time."
"Not everybody's keen on a couple of Tommy cats pairing up. Sanjay here's been cornered by a gang coming home through the alley at night."
"Got me good, too." He took a paw off the ceiling and yanked back his red collar. Beneath the elastic was a long, nearly horizontal scar along his neck. His short, ebony coat parts white where the fur refuses to grow anymore.
"Oh my… God." Margalo's horrified expression speaks volumes. Not a lot of things make her look that way.
"Blacked out and everything. Heh." Sanjay lets go of his collar and his eyes flicker away, up to the ceiling, where he readjusts his paws. "I mean… it was a decade ago, though." And then his gaze stays there for a beat. Like he's feeling self conscious about having shown this to us all the sudden.
Never, ever thought I'd see a cat be shy, in any capacity, around me.
"I'm glad you're… alive. But, geez. That's horrible." These guys are talking about the attack like it was nothing, but I couldn't imagine the pain they both went through that night. Or the stuff they endure all the time. I used to think animals would be more accepting of things like gay relationships. It's not as if they're reared around politics the way many humans are. The most divisive convention in the animal kingdom is the food chain. But it sounds as if some parts of the wild are just as hateful as society.
This conversation only reaffirms my suspicion that Margalo and I would have a pretty hard time being accepted ourselves.
"The new generation is, uh," Sanjay says with a click of understanding. "A bit more open minded, yeah?"
"Sometimes." I nod. "I guess we're lucky. We haven't exactly… er… run into any cross-species protesters. Even though they gotta be out there." The world is too big for us to be the only mixed-animal couple out there.
I look at Margalo, pulling my hands together. My finger nervously runs across the top of my palm of my other hand, around the base of my ring finger. I'm the only animal here wearing a full set of clothes. The absence of a wedding band, even on someone who does, wouldn't necessarily strike these guys as odd.
I'm not even sure why I'm worried about it. "To answer your question, I guess you could say—"
"We were just in the right place," and she looks from the cat, to me, "at the right time."
"Yeah." I smile. "You read my mind."
And the Sanjays do something that is all too familiar. Like Mom and Dad back in the piano room, they exchange a look that says nothing more needs to be said.
Across the room, excited meows cut through our conversation. The trio of kittens are now center stage. Brutus has taken the liberty of giving them something to do in the plane besides floating around aimlessly. He stands a fair distance from the others, takes each of the three tiny kittens, curled up into fuzzy lumps, in the cup of his right paw, and tosses them upwards, with just enough of a leftwards flick that their trajectory as they slowly descend lands them in his other paw. "Lunar gravity!" He explains, noticing my confusion. "Perfect for juggling practice! Ha-ha!"
Lunar gravity. We're sinking to the floor, but we're not quite back to regular gravity yet. The moon is smaller than earth, and that's why its gravity is weaker-I vaguely remember that from my obsession with space back in first grade. The plane's practice course is recreating a different sensation of gravity. Brutus must've had this little trick planned ahead. I'm envious, and I don't even know why. I know how to juggle, too.
"So." Margalo says, turning back to Sanjay. "Those kittens. They aren't-?"
"Ours? Nah."
"We assumed their mother was around somewhere in the hangar," Colin says. "Hadn't occurred to us until Brutus came to speak with us back on the ground that they were on their own. Guess the old boy found them curled up under a box a few days ago. Didn't know what to do with them, and he wasn't going to leave them alone. In the meantime, it looks like they're getting the ride of their young lives."
I take a moment to study the kittens with them. There's an orange one, a black one that almost looks like Sanjay with a heavier coat, and a white one with a black smudge on his nose, and above his eyes. They're tiny, but they don't seem to be startled by Brutus's comparatively massive presence. However short of time the mastiff has been their charge, they've learned to trust him. A big, loud canine, and three baby cats.
Between the sweetness and surrealness, I can't help but smile.
"No kids of your own, then?"
"What?" My lips rip open like a zipper.
Colin raises a bushy brow, waiting.
"Us?" Margalo puts a wingtip to her mouth. I can't read her expression, hidden behind her feathers. But her large eyes are on me. "Uh…"
"Not yet."
"It's just you seem like you'd be the family type," Sanjay says.
He focuses on me as he says this, so I know there's an emphasis on myself. I'm stunned. Part of me can't believe they would have the nerve to say something so bold. The other part of me can't believe they read me so quickly, because as insulting as this is, they're not even wrong. "I guess I am. But we haven't… "
These guys aren't dim, so it doesn't take long to figure out what they really mean. One look at my 'mate,' and just about anybody could figure out that kids would never come to us the normal way. As someone who's been adopted, it's not like I haven't thought about making the same choice for someone else someday. And when it comes to Margalo and I… it might be our best bet.
If we even get there.
I thought this wouldn't be a conversation we'd have to have for years. We're still teenagers. But these guys think we're already married. And for most animals , having kids so young is far from unheard of. What's worse is that while it takes a lot to make Margalo uncomfortable, that question's made her look as if she wishes she could drop into a pocket dimension. Is she afraid to answer in a way that won't make me happy? Or is it something more? "That is," she says, preferring to the floor than any of us while she speaks. "We haven't talked about it that much."
"Right," I nod. But the truth is, we've never talked about it. Even though we have this history, even though I should feel like I can ask her anything, I can't. I've gotten afraid to even joke around the harder subjects. Just the thought of mentioning sex in a passing comment, from which she might try to turn it into an actual discussion, makes me want to leap out the driver's side door and roll a couple hundred feet. Where am I gonna find the guts to ask her how she feels about having kids?
Oh
Oh dear.
I've never asked her these things straight up, not because I'm afraid to upset her, but because I'm afraid she'll give me an answer I don't wanna hear. Maybe that's why she never talks about the bad things that happen during migration.
I never thought I'd say it, but George was right. I am soft. I'm a coward. I could die any moment without knowing how she really feels about us in the long term.
What have I been waiting for?
"Understandable," Sanjay says. His voice sounds casual, but he's still facing the wall as he talks, shy and embarrassed. "Hope this hasn't upset you… Maybe it's easier should I speak to you as if I'm speaking of you to anybody else: Point blank, for as unusual as the Stuart's are, I'd… rather take a liking to them and I'd feel a mighty ass to make them hate us."
"Oh-Oh, no worries!" I tell him, surfacing from my thoughts with a nervous chuckle. "Not at all. Hehe…"
I'm not offended by these questions. But, oh boy, they've given me a lot to chew over.
The 'Stuarts.' Me. 'The Mister'. Our age puts us somewhere between the kids who are here with their buddies for the adventure, and the couples who are here, likely to make some romantic memories out of this. No wonder everyone thinks we're married. To them, there is no ceremony, no paperwork, no rings. Surnames are even sparse. Most animals I've met don't have owners predominantly going by pairings arranged by the leading partner's first name. Being together for a long time, and being married, it all means the same thing, anyway. Or maybe the proper designation was lost in the game of telephone leading up to this booking. Either way, I no longer feel the need to correct these guys.
Neither does Margalo.
Even for not having a clock on hand, I know time is going by too fast. I've only been on my teasy feet for what feels like a minute before the start of our next anti gravity cycle begins. "Can I talk to you?" I hook a thumb over my shoulder. "Alone?"
She and I say a brief parting to the cats, and we find a part of the cabin to ourselves. She turns sideways and presses her legs down against the rear wall, just under the window, right from the pilot's quarters. Her near complete stillness makes the image surreal. "Sorry I ditched you there."
I kick my legs up, and manage to start a slow, midair backflip. "What?"
"I mean, this is supposed to be a date, and I slinked away from you. It's just that the cats called us over, and I thought-"
"You thought, 'oh, gee. A couple of cats are calling me over. That can't be good. I have to check this out!'"
"You know me too well." She grins. "Although you're the one who kept giving them the side eye. I felt like I could smooth it over."
"I said I was sorry!" Upside down, I spread out my arms, trying to crane my head to give Margalo my eye contact. But bending my neck like that hurts like a son of a gun. "And, to be honest, I hadn't even thought of it as a date until you brought it up. All the same, it's not like I don't want you to… talk to anybody else. That's kinda weird. We're all here to have fun, right?"
I managed to float towards the wall, pressing my backside against the wall next to her. I push my knees up to my chest, facing down the floor along with her. My tail free floats in the space above me, but aside from that, it would look like we're a couple of heads mounted to the wall.
"Oh, Stuart." Margalo blinks heavy eyelids at me. "Not everyone would put up with this. Me leaving six months out of the year, only talking on the phone or in letters. Surprises like this, and the unpredictability of coming home. A lot of guys would've packed it in by now. But not you. I don't know what I did to deserve you, but I don't take this for granted."
I sigh. "I know a lotta guys on earth would call me a fool for what I'm about to say. But you and I… we have an understanding with each other. Not everybody is gonna understand it. And I don't expect them to. What you did by getting me here today proves that you really know me, and care about me."
"Of course I do." Her voice is so tender, it's hardly loud enough to hear above the engine. "Stuart, when you smile… it's like…" She rubs the back of her neck. "Heck, I don't know how to describe it. It's like everything's right with the world. I will always love you, and want you to be happy, even if there comes a day you want done with me."
"That's not happening," I tell her confidently. "Not anytime soon. Margalo, as long as you can look me in the eyes and tell me I'm your one and only, I'm all yours. And I won't ever hold you back. No from what you wanna do, or where you wanna go, and who you want to talk to." I push off from the wall to try another backflip. I think about recreating that famous scene in The Matrix, but it wouldn't be as effective without my mini BB gun. "Although you may have to forgive me if I break into your conversation with a couple of guys with thirty-two claws between them."
There's a hint of bashfulness in her otherwise confident smile. Meanwhile, my stomach goes particularly uneasy as it takes a while to finish the move and reorient myself with my legs downward. "Maybe it's time we bust out some of the harder questions."
"Like… when we get ready to have a bunch of little rats with wings, do we go to the vet, or the hospital?"
My voice cracks, and my ears droop behind my head. "Well, that's a start. Y'know, while we're on that… as much as I'd love the idea of our own… flying mouse kids…" Upside down, I flail through the air, but this time I can't seem to find a position to look at her while I speak. And so I give up. "I was thinking about adopting. But I figure I'd ask my wife how she feels about it before I get my heart settled on it."
"Mr. Little," Margalo says, and she wraps a wing around my arm. "I think we were thinking the exact same thing."
She pulls my left arm upward and I'm finally able to make the rotation. This time she keeps a hold of me, whether it's to lock me upwards for a while or to make this moment last a little longer, I don't know. I do know that I could gaze into her eyes for longer than anybody else's.
How could I think this wasn't a date? I'm starting to feel too relaxed, closing my eyes and tempted to let my mind wander into dangerous territory. But while it's easier to keep a clean mind when I picture myself as the other half of something as wholesome as a wrinkled old couple shoulder to shoulder in a frame on someone's wall, I'm finding that I'm stuck on that phrase Colin used. What it implies we are, she and I. Something more special. Something that evades rings and weddings, the institutional traps that I thought meant so much to me. Something more primal.
Eventually, our attention is drawn away by the sound of throaty chuckles. My gaze travels over to the bullfrogs. My brow goes up. "Have those guys…?"
"Started a literal game of leapfrog. You're surprised?"
"It's just… corny, don't you think?"
"Corny? Coming from a Little?."
"I don't mean it in a bad way. They're being ironic. At least I think they are."
They jump and push off each other further up, like ascending an invisible staircase, all the while making giggles. The armadillo girls are jeering at them in both English and Spanish. The hamsters, who had given them dirty eyes back at the hangar, are now losing it. One is using himself as a plank, laying still in the air so the frogs can leap off his back. The other two are falling over each other at the sight of it all.
Everything about this feels like it's straight out of a cartoon. Although the illusion is broken when one of the hamsters flops over in their direction. Blue bandana with the fur colored teddy bear brown has been the most outspoken of the gang of three so far, although he's the only one who has yet to speak to me directly. When he's near enough, he slaps the frog named Bob on the back. "Who's your dealer, man? Whatever you two are on, I need me some!"
And you know, for someone who doesn't even smoke, I totally feel that.
"Oh, yeah." Margalo gave a curt nod. "I'd say they're getting something ironic out of it."
And they weren't the only ones. Snickers leap up around the room as the frogs take center stage-er, center air-where Brutus and the kittens were. It's looking like everyone's getting a turn to perform a stunt before the others. "Wish I had my camera. George'll never believe this. Kinda dumb. But kinda clever, too."
"Why, Stuart Little." She speaks in a disciplinary voice that vaguely sounds like my mother. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you sound a little jealous."
"I'm not jealous, per se. I just feel… Lame. Uncreative."
"Well, why don't you try doing something for the crowd?"
"Like what?"
"Well, if you were going to be ironic, what would you do?"
I turn back and frown. "Hm." My brain sorts for ideas, but I come up short. "Gee. I can't think of anything. I mean," I shrug, "what are mice known for? Squeaking? Scurrying along floorboards? Having big ears?"
"Stuttering? Overthinking? Driving hideously antique cars? Oh, come on, I'm kidding!" She swipes the air in front of me. "If all that were true, I should be looking for a worm to gnaw on."
"Right. Remind me to brush my teeth when I get back."
"I guess that's my fault. If I'd just told you what was up ahead of time, we could have thought up funny stuff to do together. I guess it would have been cool to see you practice kickflips with your homemade board or something."
"Oh well. I haven't seen that skateboard in years."
"You gave it to Martha, remember."
I frown. "No. I didn't."
"Didn't you let her use it as an ironing board in the Barbie house?"
"THAT'S where it went!?" I ball my fists and grit my teeth when I exhale. I could've sworn I lost it. To think I could've been using it as a backup means of transportation all this time, if I'd only checked her room. "Little sisters."
Our conversion ends with us slowly floating down from the wall. My shoes touch the floor again, but even though I nailed the landing, I gently crumble to a random spot on the floor soon after. Feels a bit like musical chairs. We've reached the end of another parabola. Before I know it, this experience is gonna be over, and I haven't done anything but watch what the other animals are doing.
Margalo takes my hand in her wing. "Hey. Stop overthinking it. We're here to have fun. Just, you know, wing it."
"Easy for you to say. You've got wi-"
"Oh, for the love of Pete. Couldn't go one day without a pun, could you?
I snicker as I watch her rise again, floating off towards Brutus. While I can't fix being unbearably corny, I take her advice, and just do whatever I feel like. In between watching the others perform their planned zero gravity stunts, I practice swimming through the air like water. I try my forward strokes in mid air for the heck of it, surprised by how much extra exertion my body needs to do to propel me forward here than in water.
This must've given Margalo an idea. "Fly straight and true, Superman!"
I spin around then I hear her voice. "What? Oh!" I thrust my right arm forward, fingers closing into a fist. I push my legs back until my body's as close to horizontal as it can go.
Beneath me, the lights in the cabin make faint shadows of all our bodies. I don't have a mirror, but I do have my silhouette, and I'm impressed to find that, while I'm not flying at break-neck speeds, the pose does make me look like Superman. Sorta, anyway.
I'm more shy of the fact that the end of my tail won't stop flicking behind my ankle. Automatically searching for a floor that's not there. For most animals, a tail is kinda like a third leg, but evolution's rendered mine pretty useless. Good for nothing but emphasizing that I'm still more mouse than man. And yet if it were suddenly gone, I might just have to learn how to walk all over again. Something about not feeling it touch the ground behind me now is additionally disorientating.
Gotta admit, it does make my shadow look more interesting somehow. More at home with the other animals who don't normally walk upright, and haven't spent their whole lives raised to behave human-like. We are a tiny ecosystem, cobbled together from various regions and accents. All these species that have, just for this moment, left their instincts behind with the earth. Predators and prey dance around each other, laughing and shouting over the engine in a variety of accents. There's no music, no food, no drink, no decorations, no mood lighting.
But it might be the best party I've ever been to.
To my right, the possums are up. I think I've seen just about it all, but I give an audible wince as one latches onto the tail the other. His cousin, or so I heard him called, fights against the force of anti-gravity, and manages to complete a circle by biting the tail of his cousin.
What follows is a series of cheers as their connected bodies tumble in the air, trying to create a perfect circle. The image is ringing a bell in the back of my head, but I can't put a name to it.
Thankfully, someone else can. "If those jittery fuckers ain't tryin' to make an ouroboros."
"Huh?" I leap back. One of the hamster's-yellow bandana with the tuxedo fur-has floated down next to me. Back at the hangar, the hamsters seemed content with walking and running on all four legs. But in zero gravity, they seem to be more comfortable moving on just their back ones. Something about this makes me feel closer to them again.
Even if I'm completely invisible to him. "Heh." He didn't even seem to hear me. With his back erect, and his arms crossed over his chest, he too might be forced to be described as 'Something like a hamster,' rather than just a hamster. "Them hillbilly's didn't strike me as the spiritual type, that's for sure."
"I'm… not sure I understand. What's an… aurora…?"
"Ouroboros." Now he's talking to me. His expression confirms he thinks an idiot, but it's still a lot more friendly than the type I'd wager I might get from him, just an hour ago. "You know. That thing in mythology. The snake that eats itself."
"Hm? That's… eegh." It sounds vaguely familiar, but I'm not sure if that's what I was thinking when I saw the possums spinning in the air in a circle like that. "You sure it's not just… y'know, some extreme type of summersault they're doin'?"
"You could think of it like that. But it ain't as fitting." He can see I'm still not following. Rather than shrug and leave me to my ignorance, he gets closer and whispers into my left ear. "Ouroboros symbolizes life and death. The whole cycle of regeneration. Those like you and me, we gotta watch our backs for cats and dogs and half of these other dudes down on Earth, 'cause we low on the food chain, man. We way at the bottom. They're higher up. Normally, I wouldn't spend a second longer in a room with any of 'em. But Lorenzo likes to party hard. Now look where we are. A room full of fuckin' predators."
Across the room, I glance at the Teddy Bear colored hamster, the one who has the switchblade. "He's your leader," I whisper back. "Isn't he?"
"Eh." He wags his paw back and forth in a way that confirms it, but says he doesn't like to admit it out loud.
"It was his idea to come here today, wasn't it?"
"For as crazy as he is though, he's got some… okay ideas. Asking me to spin him like a rotisserie chicken in front of the cats, probably not one of them. Better him than me, that's for sure. Actually, You gotta be wired a little funny too, lettin' yo woman go talk to those cats like that."
"Not really. I mean, I've got one of 'em back at home."
His pupils expand. "You trippin'?
"No… well… not exactly. It's the family pet."
Gravity or not. I can practically hear his belief in my sanity hit the floor and shatter.
Maybe it's time to change the subject. "So uh… where'd you even learn that? The ouroboros thing, I mean."
"My boy's ma's an alchemist. Woman's got pictures of the fuckin' thing all over the house." He points his tiny, pink finger at the possums. "They might not be snakes, but it's obvious what they're trying to do."
I'm speechless. Impressed isn't enough to describe it anymore. Before coming here today, most of my experience with pets came from Snowbell, and he wasn't the type to take an interest in reading. He doesn't even really like watching TV with us unless the Feline Best in Show pageant is on, and it's more of a hate-watch than anything else. While I figured not all pets were quite as cynical, I'm surprised by how my lack of interaction with other pets has skewed my perception of them. By 'my boy', I know he's referring to an owner.
Without asking the possums themselves to confirm it, I totally believe that yellow bandanna is telling me.
Never thought I'd be able to have a civil conversation with peeps that could eat me." He shrugs. "Who would've guessed all you needed to do to get a whole bunch of animals in a room together and not fuckin' kill each other, you just gotta turn the gravity off?"
"It's weird all right. But I don't think it's a magic switch." I feel myself treading ice as I speak, but I haven't had a rush of sudden insight like this in longer than I can remember. And so, I let it out. "I think the break from the everyday just made everybody look at each other in a way they weren't inclined to before." It feels strange to be saying all this with the anti-gravity raking through my fur, my ears, and pulling my tail up in whips behind me. I feel the shift to take control of the conversation and my body, and I kick my legs back downwards and shove my hands in my pockets. "It all depends on attitude."
"Easy for you to say, Cat-whisperer."
"Shady!" On cue, Lorenzo summons the tuxedo hamster company back to the pack from which he came. Without anything resembling a goodbye, he leaves me to my lonesome once more. I think the best part of the exchange is deciding how he'll warn them against me. The plain, everyday house mouse whose statements can only be the result of pure insanity. On earth or nearly in space, I've gotta accept that that's how they see me.
Even so, I sorta like Shady. This same hamster who, just over an hour ago, I was convinced was gonna dress my shoes with his throat snot. I might not be familiar with the symbol in mythology, but I'm starting to understand what he meant about the Ourobors, and what it means to us.
These animals… they… I should say, we may all be enemies in nature. They might eat and fight and eat each other back home, but right now, they are all equals. All here for the same once in a lifetime experience. Predator and prey alike, we are all intelligent and all had the desire to know what it's like to leave gravity behind. To look out the window and look down on our home planet from above. The animals that surround us prove that that craving spans across all species. Whether or not nature approves, this is common ground.
I don't know if there will ever be such a thing as peace on Earth. But if it's possible, it has to begin here.
It's while I'm thinking this that I recognize the shadow on the wall rapidly approaching mine. I look up just in time to stretch out my hands, catching the curled up sunflower as she sinks down slowly in the weightless air.
She's close enough to me that I don't have to shout. And yet all I can think to say is… "Hey."
"Hey," Margalo says back. Her goggles are obscured by the shine from one of the cabin lights. When the glare shifts, her eyes have gone smoky. "You look good, Kent."
"Thanks." I may be far from a superman. But while I'm holding this bird as I float above the ground for once, instead of her holding me, I feel mighty. I feel like a man. And that's enough. "You too, Lois."
A moment later, the cabin light flickered. I barely had time to process it before weightlessness abated.
My heart drops, and then the rest of me goes with it. I slam into the floor. With no time to spread out my arms, I land with my chin and chest taking the weight of my body. I can't breathe. The whiplash knocks my head backwards and for a split second I worry about my neck snapping. Pain arches up from my jaw, rattles my teeth. But my chest takes the worst of it. All my body weight seems to collide with my lungs. I can't draw in a breath.
The pain of the impact spreads through my body, my muscles clenching. The sound is cold and cruel, and followed by the machine gun sounds that means the others have fallen too. For a moment the cabin thunders as every different sized body and throws them against the floor, their sound measured by their weight. Our tiny pocket of superpowered heaven is ruined by the violent return of gravity.
I feel the change in my gut, extremely nauseating and eye opening. I manage to roll over onto my side. The realization that our safe chamber, our little pocket into the vacuum of the universe, has a big problem.
Nervous chatter rises up from the cold floor as the group members, cats, hamsters, frogs. All animals, none of which I think are elementary school trained. let alone scientifically inclined, know enough about what they've signed up for today to understand what's happened. Earth's gravity has caught up to us. It's trying to reel us in. It's pulling us back down.
I look up in fear at the bird across the floor from me, laying stone still where the impact tossed her. And in that split second, seeing my better half unconscious and helpless, a sharp, sickening realization hits me right then and there.
Margalo's staring at me, stalling to get up. I can't tell if she's hurt or if she's just in shock, but there's no time. On woozy legs, I run to where she's fallen. When I'm at her side, I put my arm under her wing and try to help her up. Slowly, her knees unbended and her feet became flush with the floor.
For the first time since this all started, since she took me out of the motel, explained to me what we're doing out here, Margalo is worried. Scared.
Around us, the others scramble to remember how to stand, how to walk. We've only been in zero gravity for minutes here and there, but our muscles are teasy and confused. It's insane how easy it is to forget one of the first things we all learned how to do: Walk. And based on their expressions, it's not just that that's scaring them. Somehow, I think nearly everybody's gotten the same idea.
Something's not right. This last reunion with gravity happened too quickly.
The plane is shuddering. I don't think we're descending back to earth. I think we're falling back to earth.
Just as my mind has put articulable words to my worst fear, a commanding voice comes tearing through my thoughts. "Stuarts!" Brutus calls our name—it might as well be our name now—"Over here! I need your help!"
Brutus is opposite the exit door, against the wall dividing this room and the cockpit. We look at each other and ask no questions. Margalo takes a few uneasy flaps before trusting her wings to carry her across the cabin. I stumble and trip after her, falling to my knees twice before reaching Brutus near the pilot's door.
I wobble to a stop as best as I can. "What's going on?"
"Faulty power. This is one of the things the test is testing for. The backup's kicked on-" His head whips upwards, gesturing at the lights, -"But I know this crew like the back of my paw. Don't need to hear 'em over the side of this wall in their code speak to know they ain't taking any chances. The rest of the flight's aborted. We're rushing back for an emergency landing."
"What does that mean?" Margalo demands. Her concern is starting to give way to anger. She didn't sign us up for this. Realizing what she might have actually signed us up for. Could be the end of our lives.
"Are we in trouble?"
"Not if we act now. That's why I need your help."
My ears are still ringing from the pounding of bodies falling to the floor around me moments ago. And every tenth word is cut off as my ears pop. Our flying altitude is changing, at least that's what I think it means. And fast.
What if this is just a bad dream? Something crazy my subconscious made after watching some movie on the motel TV? I could still be asleep, George snoring in the other bed. Any second, I'll spring up, get dressed and relay the nightmare to Margalo from the cafe down the road. "Wait… how-how help? How often does this happen?"
"Only once, many years ago. But I ain't had no volunteers to look out for, then. I need you to help everyone prepare for the landing. It ain't gonna be pretty. The pilots'll be fine, they're seatbelted in. But if we don't brace, that fall earlier seem bad? It ain't gonna seem like nothing compared to what's next."
"Why us?"
"We are the emergency assists," Margalo says quietly. Though it's obvious that she never thought we'd encounter a situation where that agreement would mean anything. Until now, neither did I.
"And I asked you two for a reason." Brutus's eyes shift from Margalo to me. "Birds know all about hard falls, and you carry yourself in a way that says you've gotten out of a pickle or two in your young life."
"I do?"
"Get the girls first, tell them to line up in the back of the cabin. Brace position. Soft bodies like the frogs and hamsters are better off linking arms with me or with any other party with a bigger mass. Heads down, knees in."
Margalo's in the air before Brutus can close his mouth. She takes off for the armadillos, relaying the information before she lands. I hear their mixed voices in panic, but it doesn't take long for the teens to agree to help. They're working as sub-assets, gathering the other animals, prepared to use their hardened bodies as a shield.
Between the terror, something changes in me. A new sense of grit thumps through my blood. I stand tall before at the mastiff. "What can I do?"
"Round up the kittens and get them calmed down. I've gotta shield the bullfrogs. They'll pop like party balloons if they snag something sharp on the way down."
The kittens? I look over my shoulder. Two of them have already found each other, but one sits in the middle of the floor helpless.
I feel the cabin slowly begin to tilt under my feet, the nose of the plane angling towards the earth. I hear myself whimper as my shoes spread out under me, trying to keep balance, but it's not enough. Before the dive ends, I fail my arms and fall on my back. When the plane levels out, my ears hone in on one particular sound.
I turn my head to find the black kitten crying out, alone in the corner.
I run over, as best as I can, anyway. He can't be more than two months old, but he's already my size. I remember my first night at the Little house, and how small I felt, offering to scratch Snowbell's ears. That was the night I learned the hard reality that anything bigger than you can not, by default, be your pet. Not really. Even if you are in a position to be its master.
Still, the miserable noise he makes has all the capacity to break my heart. "Hey, hey, buddy." I touch his back. "Don't cry."
"I'm scared." I can understand him now. With my focus on him, the animal in my brain makes the necessary connection to decipher his mews into words I can say in English. "I wanna go home."
"We'll be home, soon. I don't worry. I know it's scary, and we're not all sure what's happening, but everything's gonna be alright." I put myself in Margalo's headspace. Try to relay her words from this morning back at this cat. "We'll be home before you know it."
"I don't even know where home is."
I know I'm going to regret asking, but I do, anyway. "What do ya mean by that?"
"Mom left us in a crate, and the big eared man took us." He looks towards Brutus. "He's nice."
"Yeah. He is pretty nice." I nod. Any suspicion I had about Brutus back in the hangar feels irrelevant. Even if this whole free zero gravity experience seems fishy, I can't think of a reason he would actively take these abandoned kittens onboard, unless he really cares about them, and wants them to have fun, too.
"I don't even know if she'll come back. It's been weeks."
"Gosh." I think of what Margalo said about her mother, how she woke to find her mother gone forever one random day. She'd know way better than me what to tell another animal in this situation. She's lived this nightmare. I didn't. I don't even remember my birth parents.
"Are you… human?"
"I—Huh?" The question is so strange, it throws me. "No. I'm a mouse. Sort of. W-why do you ask?"
"You smelled funny," the kitten says to me. Mommy told us to stay away from people. Kinda like people. But you don't look like people."
"Your mom wasn't wrong. Not all humans are nice. Some can be mean. But some are actually okay. Look, I don't know if you'll believe me, but I was kinda like you, once."
"You were a cat?"
"No! No… you see, a long, long time ago, when I was about your age, I was an orphan. But then one day, these people, like Brutus came, and took me home with them. And I've lived there ever since." I shrug. "I've never been able to make it up to them, for everything they've done for me. Now I'm almost all grown up, and one of them's gone, and I feel totally useless to the rest of my family. But despite all that, they still love me. And wherever your mom is, she still loves you, too."
I dunno what it is, but something I've said's resonated with the kitten. He looks at me like I've got a third eye. "Really? Nobody's ever said anything like that."
"I'm positive." I'm surprised by what's coming out of my mouth. I remember this feeling, these words falling out of a fold deep inside me. I sound like Stuart again. "What's your name?"
He sniffs. "General Electric."
"Oh. That's a… different name…"
"Brutus said she seen the name on the box we was in."
I nod, numbly. If I suddenly had three babies to care for on my own, I wouldn't necessarily know what to name them, either. "I see." I reach forward, around his head with the most tentative of motions, and do what I could never do to my cat at home. I scratch his ear. "Can I call you G.E. for short?"
The kitten rolls his head sideways, so the back of his ear is in the palm of my hand. His entire head is bigger than my torso, but when blinks a sleepy blink, he might as well be as harmless to me as a little mouse boy. "Okay."
Brutus climbs up the wall and looks out the nearest window. Whatever he sees seems to relieve him a bit. "Ah, good. They're preparing for re-entry. They're gonna take the fastest route back to the tarmac where we started. It's gonna be one mother of a bumpy landing, but it's far from the worst thing that could happen."
I know I should leave it there, but the question comes anyway. The kitten presses its face into my shoulder, and I wrap my arm around the back of his head. "What's the worst that could happen?"
"The landing gear doesn't deploy," Brutus says, as if he's talking about the weather.
Another shudder sends us rocking back and forth.
I collapse onto my knees, holding the cat tighter. My throat goes dry.
"That was the major repair yesterday, wasn't it?" Colin shouts at us. "That's what this test flight's about? The landing gear was faulty?"
"What if it doesn't come out?" Across the room, Lorenzo, who thus far appears to be something like the head honcho of the hamsters, shouts at him. "Then what?"
"Oh, it will," Brutus says quickly. He re-joins the frogs on the floor, and they latch onto the short fur on his back like baby chimps. "Just stay close with your landing partners. The more you weigh, the better the impact when we land."
I can't even be mad. I knew the risk of getting onboard. We all did. In the back of our heads. We're volunteers. All of us. And it looks as if we might just pay the ultimate price for the trip of a lifetime.
We could die.
This can't be real. This is the kind of thing that happens in movies. The hero's moment of bliss, cut short by impending disaster. Any minute, I'll start having flashbacks of my entire life. If this were a movie, this is what would be happening.
But it doesn't happen. I think of things I should be thinking about. Things and people that more than deserve my final moments of thought. I can't think about the past. I can only think of the present. Think of how I left things on earth. Mom, who's probably worried sick about us. She has no idea where me and Margalo are. Now she never will. I wouldn't blame her for hating me for leaving her without a trace, even if I know for a fact it would never come to that.
Martha. I'd gladly give her the skateboard now. I'd give her whatever she wanted if it meant I didn't have to leave her like this. I guess she'll never know what it was, so it won't matter. She knows enough about hurricanes to trust that she'll go out of her way to help protect what remains of our family.
George. Maybe he doesn't see me as a worthy brother. But maybe I was never a good enough brother to him to begin with. I think of leaving him alone in the room this morning. Maybe I wasn't really trying to avoid telling him about Margalo's secret outing. Maybe I was just trying to avoid him. Maybe I'm ashamed that he's grown ashamed of me, and I haven't tried hard enough to justify why he shouldn't be.
Dad. I…
Dad.
The man who took me home at nine years old, finished raising me like I was a boy of his own flesh and blood. Before Margalo, he was my confidant, my therapist. I haven't seen him in months, but I don't see him in flashbacks. It's weird. I think of him as if he were still here today, filling the air with effortlessly smooth piano, or painting the ceiling with undercooked flapjacks. Happened so recently that, in the rush of the moment, I forgot he was even gone.
But nothing has been the same since that old bookshelf took him from us in December. If those stories from his time in college with Crenshaw are anything to be believed, there's a chance I'm about to see him again in the afterworld along with my lost cars. What I'd give, just to hear him lay into me about taking better care of my cars, talking about the responsibility of my prior wreck, and that he wasn't holding my waterlogged model SS in his hands. If I had just one more minute to talk to him...
"Stuart, over here!"
Colin. The calico. He and Sanjay have their hands full with the other two kittens, and they're the nearest group. "We'll brace you, mate!"
His paw extends to me. And that's the first time I notice his claws.
An image of Smokey flashes before my eyes. I feel nauseous. "Oh… I don't know if I can-"
"Ah, don't be a git! Come on! You know you and that plucky little hairball will go airborne if you don't anchor yourself to something."
As much as I don't wanna admit it, Colin's right. I don't weigh nearly enough to keep the kitten on the ground when we land, and vice versa. If we stay here together, the cat could get seriously hurt, and it'll be my fault.
I've gotta be brave. I pull G.E. away so I can look into his eyes. "We're gonna join your brothers. Can you walk for me?"
"I dunno..."
"Try," I plead. "Please."
I reach under the kitten, and with my arm hooked under his stomach for support, he manages to get to his feet. He's still wobbling, but he pads forward. Slowly, we walk the shuddering plane floor towards Colin and Sanjay. It's only a couple feet away, but for a mouse and a kitten who's barely learned to walk, might as well be a mile. The plane slowly tilts nose down, to the left, and G.E. lets out a fearful noise. Every time he collapses down on the floor, I reach under his stomach and heave him back upwards with all my might. The kitten can't weigh more than a few pounds, but the force demands a lot from my body, and it doesn't take long for a familiar pain to begin prickling up from my lower back. Mom's furious with me about it. Says I'm way too young to have back problems, but I guess it's the price you pay for exuding as much independence as you can as a mouse in a human world.
Finally, we've reached them. The cats have their backs against the corner of the wall, one kitten each folded into them, as if they were their own children. Colin, this cat who was a perfect stranger to me until less than an hour ago, opens his arm to me once more. Without hesitation, I push G.E. into it, and then myself.
The calico is a wall of fur. Between him and G.E., the fluff and warmth is overwhelming, but I'm far from a position to complain. What makes me really uncomfortable is the paw wrapped around G.E. and resting on my shoulder. Colin's claws are out, and he's using them to keep a hold of me. They're curved, like giant fish hooks, points sharp against my skin. Despite my want to trust Colin, every nerve in my body is compelling me to get away.
I close my eyes and focus on G.E. His little heart hammers against my chest, and I'm petting his back in long, carefully measured strokes. I'm not even sure who's comforting who anymore.
With the adult cat's arm still wrapped around my shoulder, G.E. turns away from Colin's embrace, and I'm struck when the kitten buries his face into my shoulder, instead. He's crying openly now, and I feel a puddle forming on my shirt.
My heart breaks for him. He's just a little, little kid. He's got his whole life ahead of him, and so far it's been nothing but pain. In his short time alive, he's lost his mom, being abandoned, and now he's facing down the realistic threat of death. Though I should be mad at him, I feel no resentment towards Brutus for bringing the kittens here. He was just trying to give them some fun. Show them that existence isn't all horrible.
I'm scared for this kid. I'm scared for everyone. Most of all, I'm scared for Margalo most of all. It's my fault we're here to begin with. That she brought me here.
"Stuart!"
I snap to the voice. Across the plane, she's calling for me. Huddled together with the armadillos. A group of four, strong young women, brought up by nature, three with their own sets of armor. They look like a force to be reckoned with. But Margalo still sounds afraid. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't tell you where we were going today. I'm sorry I'm fumbling this… girlfriend thing… all over the place. I don't know what I'm doing! You deserve so much more than what I can give you. If this goes wrong, if I don't make it-"
"Margalo!" I shout her name. Colin adjusts his arm so that I can see her. I need her to see my eyes. To believe every word I'm about to say. "Stop! I wouldn't trade today for anything." I articulate every word carefully, making sure she hears every word. "I'm gonna remember this-all this-for the rest of my life. I don't wanna lose what I felt today with you. I don't want to lose you. If something happens, I don't want to go down without you knowing exactly how much I need you. How much I love you."
"What—?" The plane strikes a knot in the clouds, and the turbulence throws her into the arms of armadillo Maria. She wraps her wing around this landing partner, and she holds fast to her.
It already feels like I'm drowning in fur. And then the ginger cat's decided to latch onto me as well. I figure he just wants to be closer to his brother, but I have no idea. With Colin's grip on my back. And then the spotted nose one follows his lead.
In seconds, I've gone from stroking G.E. for mutual comfort, to become the hugging pole for three screaming, crying kittens. Me. A mouse.
When she looks over the top of her wing at me again, Margalo looks hurt, as if she can't fathom what I've hidden from her. "What do you mean?"
I open my mouth, but close them immediately to grit my teeth. Colin's claws readjust, and now they're cutting into my shoulder. They slide right through my shirt, into my skin, and I feel the searing pain of new cuts under the fur. He's not trying to hurt me, I know, but he's cutting deeper into me for anchorage. The kitten's weight is making me heavier. They've let go of Sanjay and Colin. At this point, if I fly, they all fly.
My shirt is wet, my own blood, and someone else's tears. On top of Colin, the kittens are using their own claws on me. There's a kitten claws in my thigh, in my back. It's the tiniest one, the one I'm soothing with my other arm. I wish I hadn't trimmed my nails, maybe I'd have better grip to justify Colin loosening his grip on me. The ginger one is crying into my ribcage. I'm in a mound of fluff and snot with only my head and arms poking out.
The plane tips forward, nose down. Colin and Sanjay reach for each other. At the last moment, General Electric lets go of the other cats, and throws his weight onto me. He up onto my shoulder, his tiny claws turning me further into a mouse shaped pin cushion, unleashing the mother of all screams right in my ear drum.
All I can think is that I'm not about to die with these words unspoken. I toss my head back and scream for the world to hear. "Would you-?!"
BOOM. The plane makes contact with the ground. I'm ripped from claws and claws rip from me, Colin's tearing right through my shirt. In the air, again, the nose of the plane bouncing upwards on, sure enough, properly working landing gear.
My gut clenches as my body smacks against a wall. I fall back to the floor, landing to the right of the pile of fur. My right shoe, fallen untied, flies to the right. As the cruel force of gravity asserts control, a kitten rolls on top of me, their weight knocking the wind from my lungs. The rest of our misfit comrades are once again thrown about the cabin, their shrieks and cries tossed back and forth like olives and tomatoes in a tossed salad.
We thunder down the tarmac, ambling along the same shocked, tiny extendable wheels that were the only thing standing between us, and a deadly impact with the earth. The only good thing about being back on solid ground is getting my bearings faster. The adrenaline is still ripe and pumping through me. My heart's like jackhammer. I'm on my feet and taking in the scene and all around me are voices, but my brain can't decipher any of it. It comes together in an amalgamation of noise that grows quieter and quieter, before my ears pop.
We're alive.
We're alive, and it feels like I'm the last person to get over this news. Most of our fellow volunteers have suddenly fallen into an uncanny calm. They seem to fall into a quiet set of procedures, something that leaves me out of the loop. They might be housepets, most of these guys, but their instinct is so much more keen and focused than my own. Standing, and checking themselves, turning over paws and tails. Their own and each other's. Names cry out for each other. The parties become louder as they check in with each other. Ask if anyone's been hurt.
My heart hammers and eyes scan the room for Brutus, because I'm afraid now that the magic's turned off, we're about to descend into chaos. But it doesn't seem like there will be a need for that. The animals around me have fallen into their own makeshift order. Can't imagine humans regaining focus so quickly after a crisis like we just had.
I start to stand, half of me wondering how we got so lucky, half where my shoe might've landed. It's not long before others have gotten on their feet. As the plane settles down for a gentle cruise down the remainder of the runway, the hamsters, the kids that she gave up her spot of safety for at the last minute, dash across the floor, rushing for the door. No doubt they want out of the ship that almost ended us. The others follow, varying eagerness to get off the plane nevertheless. Once the door opens, there is a pause in which the animals linger, waiting for humans. After an agonizing silence, when it becomes apparent that no one is coming, One after another, the animals disappear into the Texas sunlight. The acquaintances I've made today, I'll never see again.
As Brutus tries to regain order, I scan the room for my partner. A look down my left leads me to the armadillos, and when they clear the way, there she is. Flat on the floor again.
It's like being underwater. My focus fades in and out. All the noise around me momentarily abates, and all I can hear is my heartbeat, thumping in my ear.
And then I see her head rise from the floor. She's alive. She survived the landing like everyone else, but something's not right. She hurries to get up, pushes her chest up from the floor. But as soon as she tries to stand, she sinks right back down.
"Margalo!" A new, razor sharp focus overcomes me, moving my wobbly body towards her, impatient and clumsy. The length of the plane's floor suddenly feels three times as long. My legs are still shaking, though it could just be rattled nerves.
There's scattered whispers as I approach. By the time I reach them all, Margalo still can't seem to stand on her own. And it's not for lack of trying. Every time her wingtip is about to leave the ground, Her face twists with sudden, intense pain, and she crumples, cheek back to the floor.
Lupe, one of the armadillos who've protected her and the possums during the landing, (though those guys are long gone, now) takes hold of Margalo's wing, but the look on her face says she's scared and unsure what to do.
"What's wrong?" I'm speaking to Margalo, now. I stick my arm under her other wing, try to pull her up, to get a look at her right leg. "Is it-is it broken?"
"It's just a sprain. It's nothing."
"How can you be sure?" I'm trying to stay calm. I've gotta be. I take a look around the place. The plane is empty now, save for the armadillos, Margalo and I, but we're not alone. Without the drone of the turbines, I can start to hear voices outside the craft. The pilots in the cabin just on the other side of this wall sound dangerously close, now.
Margalo closes her eyes tightly and sets her right leg down on the floor, taking a deep breath as she tries some weight on it. "If it was broken…." She then lets go of her breath, picking the leg back up, squeezing my arm tight. "... I wouldn't be able to put any weight on it."
Without warning, the cabin light goes off, and suddenly, we're plunged into darkness. I hear voices on the other side of the pilot's cabin. A door opens.
"Oh no. They're coming." My heartbeat quickens. "Girls, you've gotta go!"
"But will you be alright?" asks the one I think is named Maria.
"I can talk my way out of trouble," I tell them. "With humans, anyway. Might be the only thing I'm good for. Please, save yourselves."
Despite their hesitation, the girls do heed my plea. In a single file line, they trot to the door, listen for a moment, then they make an escape. Three of the bravest girls I think I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. I regret not thanking them for willing to risk themselves to help Margalo, but maybe it's better I didn't. It would only incite them to stay with the knowledge that I might actually need their help.
Still, I get a feel for her body, and I put my hand behind her back, pulling her wing around my neck. As the turbines slow, and we're ushered into ominous silence, my whiskers brush against the side of her cap. "I'll carry you." I whisper.
"No, Stuart, you don't have—Stop!"
And I don't. When it comes to her imminent danger, I don't accept 'no' for an answer. I can't. My hands find her upper and lower back, and lift her up.
Carrying her should be a breeze. It's not like I haven't done it before. I've even looked for excuses to hold this girl in my arms. Maybe it wasn't exactly easy when we first met, but I've put on muscle since then. And Margalo's never not been underweight. So I can't believe it when, as soon as her feet leave the ground, my arms almost give way. "What's…?"
"STUART!" She gasps against my neck, and it cuts my gasp short. My mouth snaps shut as she grabs me, and soon I taste a coppery hint of blood from a bitten tongue. The rush of adrenaline isn't enough. I have no choice but to lower her back down, concentrating the weight on the good leg. "What the-?
What's going on with me? I've carried her before, no problem. Why is this so hard?
"Stuarts." A familiar authoritative accent makes my head spin again, only this time I'm relieved to hear it.
At the back of the plane, in the light of the doorway, the mastiff is waiting for us. Sunlight turns his figure into a silhouette, making Brutus appear divine, and simultaneously casts him in such a mysterious look that fits the way I've felt about him from the beginning. "Listen, we gotta be quick. They'll be sending ground crew around to check the plane ASAP. See what went wrong. They could be as soon as a few minutes. We gotta be long gone by then." Before us, the dog lowers his head, then the front of his body until his ears and jowls are flat against the floor. "Hop on. I'll give ya a lift."
A/N: I strongly recommend going to look up the song "Weightless" by 311. I realize referring to songs as often as I do in fanfiction can be a knee-jerk crutch for weak writers—Hell, my first posted fanfic WAS a straight up songfic— and I didn't want this to end up being a partial song fic either—But I gotta actively recommend the song this time because 1) 311 is among the bands I enjoy that I'm not self conscious about, and unlike songs I've only referenced in the writing, such as "To Sir with Love" I don't think this song is as well known and 2) the lyrics are what inspired the fanfic to begin with.
Even so, just using the word weightless too much in the writing made me feel lazy. I wanted to tailor the lines that really nail Stuart's resolution while he's doing the Superman pose, as well as to avoid straight up using the lyrics in text.
Just two more parts to go and they're nearly complete. Thanks to anybody who's stuck around this long. Comment/Critique of any kind would be awesome.