Nanowrimo 2022
Leisure Travel
American Kingdom Day 29.1
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“This is your captain speaking. I’ll be flying this billion-dollar hunk of metal on tonight’s flight to Dallas-Fort Worth. You may unfasten your seatbelts and move about the cabin. Feel free to raid the galley for whatever is available with the exception of alcohol.
“In a minute I’ll be sending back my co-pilot to give you a version of your travel plans that is probably wildly inaccurate and has since been modified by two different people in three different places to be as efficient and as cheap as possible. Normally I’d ask for a brother pilot amongst the passengers to come forward and fly with me but for tonight only I’m asking Sergeant Freytag to come forward and induct me into the Mile-High Club. Tonight’s flying time will be one hour and five minutes. There may be some turbulence during those five minutes.”
‘Vermin’ appeared out of the cockpit a moment later.
“Huh,” he said. “Five minutes. Sergeant Freytag will be lucky if she gets thirty seconds.”
I stood up and he looked at me. “Make that fifteen, lucky lady.”
I looked through the bar fridge, selecting a Virgils. “Good choice, Molly. Mountain Dew for Rocky.”
I settled myself into the familiar territory of the right seat, clipped on the headphones and buckled my seatbelt.
Beside me, ‘Rocky’ was impossibly handsome in a military buzz and the definite input of his mother.
I offered my hand. “All you’re getting tonight, buster.”
“That’s what my wife says. Good to meet you, Molly. You scored a hit with my mother, and that’s not easy. She rejected all but one of my girlfriends.”
“The one you married, I hope?”
“I had no say in the matter. She wanted grandchildren that looked presentable. You want to see?”
I laughed. “I’ve already seen about a hundred photographs. She’s really smitten.”
“Yeah, but she gets to hand them back when they get tired and emotional. I think she fills them full of sugar.”
“Like Mountain Dew?”
“See, I get it from her.”
He went quiet for a minute. “Sorry, Molly, listening to Air Traffic Control. We’ve got someone at DFW trying to negotiate a slot for us. Otherwise we’ll have to land somewhere else and have a helicopter run you over.”
“Um, what are our travel plans? We were told a twenty hour flight.”
“Got you on a Spanish flight to Madrid overnight. Head on from there in the morning. Trying for Business seats so you can get some sleep. Don’t worry. You’ll be met at DFW and given all the details there about five minutes before takeoff.”
Yeah. That helped.
“Any idea of what’s going on? We had all our plans cancelled twice today.”
“Some panic at the Palace. Happens all the time.”
“Just like the Army, I guess.”
“We got the word to move some troops from A to B in as short a time as possible. We didn’t get told why, just do it. Other people have their own bits of the puzzle to solve. The Duchess of Dallas will look after you at DFW; she gets things done. There’ll be someone else in Madrid, likely on their way from the Palace already.”
“Oh, I know Lady Marion. She recruited me!”
“And Mom collected you from Jayzee, ah, Charleston Exec two days ago. You sure got started on the run. There are all sorts of rumours floating around about you. You died and came back, something like that?”
“Yeeees, but if you want to know what’s on the other side, I have no idea. I remember having a hot coffee on a cold day in Afghanistan and the next thing I know I’m in some hospital in Germany with a post-mortem scar and nobody able to give me a straight answer. Odd thing, one of the very few people in the world who could have helped me understand at the time is sitting in the cabin behind us with her fiancé. She was a nurse who flew with me from Bagram and they sent her back before I woke up.”
“Wow. What does a post-mortem scar look like? Can you show me?”
I looked over at him. His eyes were fixed rigidly ahead, his face contorted into a strained expression, and his shoulders shook slightly.
I moved my hands around the front of my shirt. “Sure.”
He turned to look and I stuck my tongue out at him. He grinned.
“Worth a shot. Hey, there’s something I gotta do.”
He took the autopilot off — I knew because Princess Dee had shown me the button to push — and began moving the aircraft in a slow, rhythmic, pattern.
I laughed.
A voice called out from the rear, “Hey, Rocky, you forgot to close the curtains. It’s just you with your hand on your stick. As usual.”
“Oops. Hey, nice talking to you Molly. But you’re a distraction and I got some work to make Vermin do for me. Send that galoot back here, will you? We’ll have to catch up one day. Got some kids you can entertain while I relax. They’d love to learn that Southern accent of yours. Right now they all speak like Aussie cartoon dogs.”
“Ah, right. Deal, Rocky. Give my regards to your Mom. She’s a honey.”
He smiled again and waved me back.
Wasn’t just Dee’s grandkids that were cute.
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Notes
OK, the image is cheesy. If I wanted ‘Rocky’ the pilot, then I’d put Sly into a flightsuit, yeah?
I meant to have a bit of exposition here, but with Rocky and Molly swapping light banter, a discourse on Kingdom titles and succession rules seemed unlikely. Yeah, like this story is at all plausible, hey?
For those without kids, there’s an Australian cartoon sweeping the world right now. It’s about a family of dogs in a dog world, one where Her Late Majesty is shown on the parallel Australian currency as a corgi. It’s funny and works for kids and adults.