Doctored Chance #NaNoWriMo2019

7| It's a Bird, It's a Plane

The following afternoon, the volcano bubbled a muted conversation far overhead. Birds circled and dove in the water to claim easy meals from the aftermath of the eruption. The thick black layer of ash had thinned to a light film which rolled along with the waves and the armada of belly-up fish.

Tobias sat in the water with one suffocated serving of unsliced sashimi, too exhausted to move, and too sickened. The slippery creature trembled in his hands, which were unable to hold still. He touched his dry tongue against the moistureless roof of his mouth and brought it closer. The scales flaked on his lips and clung at every surface and before his teeth could even break the thin skin, Tobias was spitting and spewing the thin hexagonal discs. He thrust his head under the water to cleanse, and when he rose, a screeing seagull was upon him. The feathered beast snatched his fish and made off, while he thrashed in the water, more startled than anything.

Tobias shook his fist and splashed water in the bird's general direction, frustrated. Its white wings beat the air obliviously, and Tobias wearily watched it grow smaller, shoulders sagging as he sighed and slouched. In the corner of his eye, a greyish speck appeared through a distant cloud to the right of the retreating seabird, growing steadily larger. Tobias raised his hand to his brow, blocking out the afternoon rays, and squinted.

It was too large to be another gull and much too fast. The sound of it's purring engine became clearer as it neared, puttering towards the island.

But, Tobias frowned. It couldn't be coming to the island. And yet, if he ignored the unlikely chances of the metal bird spiraling into the bay, getting hit by a grenade deflected from a fight in East Benediction, or getting pummeled by a nearby flock of birds, the chances of the plane landing on his lonely landmass were relatively high. Even weary, Tobias could see that it was on its way, advancing the distance.

For a while, his jaw hung open and he dumbly stared, losing his sense of reality. His eyes followed the grey blob in his sky while the rest of his body was limp. He licked his lips.

His message, he reluctantly realized, could not have reached its target so soon.

His message, though it was a hardship to write and an act of blind faith to throw it to sea, did not reach anyone. According to my research, the bottled message was shuddering over the roads of the East at this time, on its way to the dump, where only myself would ever find it. Tobias was right to feel his heart sink and right to acknowledge that whatever business the seaplane had, it was not in response to his signal.

He abruptly jolted to action, scrambling to get out of the water. His shield ploughed the sand as he heaved himself up and out in overzealous and off-balanced one-legged vaults. Too exposed, he thought. Too exposed.

In his little basalt shelter on the beach, he curled up and cowered, eyes wide as they blankly stared out. His ears strained to hear where the engine was, where the plane would land. Perhaps he would ask whoever it was to take him to the hospital. Perhaps there was no point in waiting for a different outcome.

But, then he would have to suffer some publicity stunt where he would most certainly be made a victim in a most unfair way. He could already see the headlines: DEFIANCE REUNITES: MR. MIGHT WEEPS. Benjamin Jones would be all over it. He slapped his bad cheek and the blinding agony of it snapped his thoughts back into place.

No. His jaw clenched. I won't be an accessory again.

Nearby, a loud splash indicated the landing of the plane. Sand scraped against its hulls as it glided up the beach, out his sight. The rotors swished the air, slowing and slowing until they eventually stilled to silence and a heavy door chinked open. Footsteps and voices spilled out from the place, all at once, all loud and inappropriate. Why would someone where stilettos to a volcanic island? Tobias could hear the distinct click of the sharp heels against the plane's hull as the inappropriately dressed woman stepped down, then heard it again on the basalt as she clicked away from the beach. Heavy and wide heels clunked behind her. Multiple heavy and wide heels.