The aircraft
A Science Fiction
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Short Story : The aircraft
By Prabir Rai Chaudhuri . All Copyright Reserved 2009
Today, unspecified date
Logbook of the only passenger. Recording from mobile phone.
I have been traveling for days, though I cannot say for
sure. It could even be years. Behind me, the edges of the solar system are
hundreds of kilometers away, a black abyss that separates me forever from my
world. I do not know my destination, nor can I interpret the language and
symbols of the instruments on board. It is all so foreign, alien .
For a moment the taste of adventure and mystery overwhelmed
my consciousness, even when I saw the faces of my friends grow more and more
alarmed. When I could no longer go back, change the course of events, stop my
journey.
I don't know if I'll ever see them again, or if I'll ever
return to my planet, to my usual life. Now, at increasingly incalculable
distances, I can only regret having come aboard.
In the aircraft coming from the sea.
A few days before, Roman coast
The morning summer sun heated the sand to a fiery dust, and
the smell of rotting seaweed on the shoreline was carried on a light wind along
with the song of hungry seagulls.
They sat on colorful towels chatting and passing the time,
men of thirty, forty years old and young women with precarious jobs. Gathered
together in a heap like abandoned objects, they enjoyed the saltiness on their
skin greasy from sunscreen.
“I’m going for a swim,” said D. He got up and walked toward
the shore.
“I'm coming too,” M. echoed, and followed him.
Instinctively they raised their feet at the contact with the
cold water and advanced like two penguins or like two staggering drunks. Then
they dived, hiding from the world the shivers that assailed them. They emerged
gasping and began to swing their arms, raising foam and spray and residues of
marine flora.
When the dark mass appeared on the horizon, they stopped,
floating and trying to figure out if it was an animal or a vessel. It couldn't
be a shark, because there were none, and it seemed to be completely out of the
water, a solid body, devoid of light, approaching.
“What the hell is that?” D asked, but no one answered.
They stood there, staring at the thing that was getting
bigger and bigger, until they understood.
And then they began to swim, some to the right, some to the
left, so as not to be hit, and in the meantime they tried to return to the
shore.
The other friends had noticed something strange from the
beach and now they were standing next to each other on the shoreline watching.
They too had understood what was approaching.
It was an airplane .
It looked like a common seaplane, although its structure was
unknown. The squat fuselage was recognizable, as were the two wings that
surmounted it. And it had a tail and a rudder, that much was clear. But none of
them had ever seen an aircraft like that.
There was something futuristic and ancient at the same time,
as if the future had merged with the past, skipping the present. It didn't make
any noise.
The two watched as the seaplane touched the shore and
continued its course, slowly, across the sand. The group of spectators moved
aside just in time, before being hit full on by the nose and wings of the
plane.
The water became shallower and the feet of the two boats
touched the bottom. They saw the seaplane, which, instead of stopping, turned
towards the sea. It was a dull, opaque gray, and a sort of smoke was coming out
of the metal, as if it were evaporating.
No one approached the seaplane except the two who came out
of the water. They looked at the sides for signs of where it came from, but
they found none. So they stayed there, waiting for the pilot to come out.
They waited several minutes, but no one looked out of the
cockpit. The windows were dark and no noise came from the aircraft.
“Let's open the hatch,” D. suggested.
“You do it,” M. replied.
And the other pulled the handle.
The aircraft was empty.
They entered the deserted cockpit and on the single seat
they saw a suit and a helmet. The controls revealed unknown instruments, with
strange symbols indicating their functions, but to them completely
incomprehensible.
“How did he get here?” asked M.
"How do I know? Maybe it has an automatic command. But
I wonder where it comes from."
D grabbed the suit. It felt light, but the fabric felt
sturdy. He began to put it on.
"What are you doing?"
“It looks good on me, doesn’t it? It’s my size.” He also
picked up the helmet and tried it on. It fit perfectly.
M noticed a door behind the driver's seat, which led to what
must have been a bedroom. While in front a second door gave access to a small
bathroom. They were sure of this, sure that those two rooms were a bedroom and
a toilet, but the furniture did not belong to their reality. The bed was a
rectangular structure, white and soft to the touch. In the bathroom there was a
sort of sarcophagus in an upright position, which opened as soon as M touched
the wall. A shower, albeit claustrophobic. There was no sink and the white box,
which also opened to the touch revealing an empty space, left no doubt as to
its purpose.
“Come on, let’s go down,” said M. The two left the aircraft.
Outside, the others kept their distance from the aircraft,
as if they feared it might explode. The beach, in that area, was almost
deserted and no one had noticed the arrival of the seaplane.
M closed the door from the outside and when he leaned
against it the plane moved.
“It's very light,” he said, as if he didn't believe it was
possible.
“Let’s take him in there,” D said, pointing to a sort of
abandoned shack on the beach, backed by a series of dunes overgrown with
sun-dried weeds.
The two began to drag him and the friends preferred to
mutter among themselves and look at them as if they were two crazy people and
maybe they really were, one in a bathing suit and the other in a pilot's
outfit, pushing a plane towards a hangar made of wood and wicker.
The hut had once served to provide shelter for beachgoers,
it was large enough that they could push it in and move around comfortably.
But something strange happened when they stopped.
The aircraft rotated and positioned itself once again
towards the sea.
The two looked at each other. “But how does he do it?” asked
M.
“I'm going in,” said the other.
D opened the hatch again and stepped into the cockpit. Some
of the instrument lights were on, though he couldn't tell what they meant.
Then the door closed and the engines started. He heard M
knocking outside and asking what he was doing, but he hadn't done anything.
He sat down in the driver's seat and found himself with a
sort of seat belt wrapped around his waist. More lights flashed on the panels
and a distant hiss spread.
Then the aircraft moved.
M kept hitting the side of the plane, but D could do nothing
but watch. He didn't know how to fly that craft. Many years before, as a boy,
he had attended an aeronautical culture course and flown a SIAI S 208, but a
lot of time had passed and he had never gotten his pilot's license anyway.
Ahead of him he saw the shore approaching and the others
waving. He heard his friend yelling at him that he was crazy, but he wasn't the
one who was propelling the plane forward and he couldn't tell him that.
Then the aircraft entered the water and picked up speed. D
saw other instruments come on, lights and short hisses that he did not
identify.
He was pushed back and his vision went black for a few
seconds. When the images returned it was dark in front of him.
He had left the atmosphere.
His stomach sank and his mind filled with questions he
couldn't answer.
The excitement of the moment, of the novelty, combined with
the enormity of the event and threatened to make him lose his mind.
But he felt strangely calm.
Little by little his pupils narrowed, his thoughts faded and
a feeling of emotional and physical relaxation enveloped him.
Until everything around him faded into an imageless sleep.
Today, unspecified date
When I opened my eyes, the truth was shown to me by the
screen in front of me. I couldn't decipher the writing on that sort of star
map, but I could see the planets.
They were those of my solar system. And the bright green dot
that was moving fast was the aircraft I was traveling on.
Pluto's orbit was behind me.
I don't know where it's going or why. I don't know who's
flying this aircraft or how or why it got to that beach.
I don't know what day it is. My cell phone works, but the
date is fixed to the day I left my friends on the seashore.
Perhaps no time has passed, perhaps the unknown force that
drives this aircraft can move at an unthinkable speed.
I do not know.
I only know that I am flying towards a dark destination and
I am completely unaware of what I will be able to tell this diary and how my
life will evolve.
If I'm still alive when I arrive.