quick fic

[wytchcroft]

P for...

Neil Young might have been right when he sang that flying on the ground is wrong - but I don't think he had me in mind at the time, not me, not this house and certainly, most assuredly, not this skin irritating ash dottled faded blue sandpaper of a carpet.

Still, all the same - it was nice of him to pen a number cute enough and hooky enough to distract me - to give another voice, and a humorous one at that, the chance to comment on (and add a welcome chorus to) the ludicrous action right here, right now.

Oh sorry, did I say action? My mistake, considering that I’m not actually moving, all the action is uh, well, rather internalised. Like an injury.

Grotesque isn’t it, all this, just look at all this mess here – and the scale’s all wrong, the wing, the broken bloody wing, the little plastic air-fix engines, all the hours they took, the genuinely retractable undercarriage, yeah I think that’s a wheel over there. Hard to tell, hard to see clearly when your face is in the plush and one of your eyes is pressed shut, or at least I think it is.

Grotesque, yes, the scale all back to front, just look at that twisted passenger, or is it the pilot perhaps, either way they look like a giant compared to the pieces, the tiny snapped plastic remnants. Shame, a real shame, there’s so few of us enthusiastic collectors and creators, careful builders of the model aeroplane. So few – and one less just might be, soon enough. And me, me, the designer of them, ha, so much for reputation, so much for fame – no fucking use at all is it – not compared to the things you really need, all those things that prove their worth in a crisis, things like oh, safety belts, harnesses, parachutes.

It is one thing to be borne upon the wind – quite another to be hoisted aloft on your own petard.

Still – it’s all flying, supersonic, super flying, fast - fast - fast - fucking -

It really is a question of perception; action, movement. Like being drunk, (and I mean really rat arsed slaughtered) or the sensation you get when you're young and your back is to the warm earth and your eyes are closed against the sun and you can feel the spin the thrilling whirl and twist of the whole damn planet and you on top of it all.

A giddy minute’s inertia.

All that movement, all that action - except not, not really.

Then again you're not paralyzed either, not like now, not like me, here, now, with my face in the carpet and my arms and legs somewhere nearby lying like dead twigs, dead branches.

Paralyzed at a million miles an hour. Perception. Bloody strange to be lying in the wreckage, lying still, and yet hurtling through the blue carpet into the dark of space and its glittering vapours, all the tiny flaring stars.

And what precipitated this precipice defying act, this contusion of P's?

Privacy, now that's a P too - thank you very much. P's … and Q's, mind your own. I shall, as Wodehouse would say, draw a discreet veil.

Drink?

Yes please - coffee, ta very much - might need a straw though or a very long spoon possibly.

Oh wait, insinuating something are we? Have I - do I – am I drunk? No actually, so you can stop that sort of thinking and quick about it. Can’t exactly execute the necessary grace of hand and finger, can you, not if you drink, no use at all for the finesse of expert model making – so no, I don’t drink and my hands are steady. Were steady perhaps anyway. God I feel so – disconnected from myself. I guess that could be death. What a strange headline that’ll make; Aircraft Enthusiast - Fatal Crash in Own Home.

But I should be proud. It’ll be quite an obituary. Now I grant you, I was late, I missed the really grand times, the chance to have a town, Patterson’s Town, and I could have you know, like Cadbury’s or that one with the shoes. And what a town it would have been, Patterson’s; every day a holiday with all the kites and the bright planes flying and every worker happy as a sparrow, happy as a lark- in flight. No, I missed that, missed all that I grant you – but I’m proud, and why not, last of a line, British manufacturing, a British institution, British Planes, British planes, British Pride. And a very British obituary in a very British newspaper to boot.

 If anyone finds out that is. I suppose that’s the downside.

Eh?

To your P for privacy. No-one sees, no-one knows.

I'm not that self Pitying as it goes. I don't care who sees, who knows - whatever, there's no big thing, no revelation, just perception; fragile human perception. P for. P for… fuck up.

P for…

Performance… it’s all about performance that’s the final beauty, the real artistry. But it’s like me, like now I mean, the layers, the layers peel away as you move through them, as you fall through them.

Every layer, comet tails and stardust, you can be hypnotised, you can be absorbed by each single – for some people, flight, the elemental wonder of flight, and miniature flight at that, flight you can grasp, flight you can hold, for some it’s all about mathematics, exact and scientific - and yet the result is beauty and wonder and magic. For some it’s design, aesthetic design, painting the form from the mind and onto the paper and into the air, for some; engineering – the nuts and bolts, the grease and axle, the prop and the jet. Propulsion. P. P for…

P for punishment?

Come again?

Well, it's a fine line between privacy, perception and punishment. Poison. Perhaps you've been poisoned.

That's a nasty little thought, that's a nasty imagination, nasty little mind...

Happened before though, right?

Well, yes, ok, yes, if we're being picky with my history, so long ago… seems like. Wait, yes, 1982 if my suddenly light head can still hold dates, names; 1996, the Bournemouth model air show competition. No wonder I can hardly remember I had to sit out most of it, sat in those awful outside toilets, the chemical ones, bloody hours of it, that bastard Shaw and his laxatives. Not even funny, not even a joke – I never even got off the ground – but it taught me to never spend an evening dining with rival contestants. Jesus, he took it so seriously, absolutely had to win. Imagine that. Absolutely had to; Him on the podium and me in the shit, poor bastards the pair of us – or at least that’s my perception.

But now? No, sorry, wrong drama; don’t think I’m poisoned at the moment. Just broken.

Perception can be poison enough though, can’t it? That is - we can't, we don't see too clearly do we, people I mean. Our perceptions, they poison so much of our actual knowing. We project so much, don't we?

Oh sure, project and survive.

But I'm not exactly projecting right now am I - not on this fucking carpet.  I’m not doing much of anything except flying on the ground like the old song says.

Old Canadian song at that.

Sorry, what?

Neil Young, Canadian.

Oh right, yes, you got me there, sorry, all that British stuff before, I might have been exaggerating somewhat, you know, just pulling your leg a bit, a bit fun, that’s all, just fun. Flying is fun after all, don’t you think you think? Don’t you? I hope you’re not one of those weird sods with a phobia, fear of flying, my God.

Although when I say flying, I mean, of course, falling.

And such a falling, such a – do you know, I remember I’m sure I remember reading a story – yes! Oh the smell of those pages, the paper and the primary dyed pictures, ‘Daring Space Adventures 1968’, a blue tinted figure falling through the cosmos towards the coming Earth, nothing between himself and the great vacuum or that final collision, nothing but his trusty space suit.

Falling, falling, into the blue, like me, like here, like now, moving so fast that you don’t seem to be moving at all.

But you are - we are - aren’t we, falling, fast, into the blue, into the carpet, into the ground and the cold earth below.

I don’t know, I can’t tell, it won’t look like that in the papers though, will it, eh? Not in a photograph. No/one will see the falling, see the movement, just the wreckage, what’s scattered about here, in this room, on the surface.

Well, but that’s the trouble isn’t it? That’s the problem with people today; no depth perception.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Not to me anymore anyway, sorry, but I can’t care and I don’t hear, no, I mean I can’t hear and I don’t care, not now, not while I’m flying, if you don’t mind, if you’ll stop distracting the pilot, if you’ll just leave me to enjoy this while I can, I think I can now, flying, it’s magic, terrific, look at me go!

Will there be prizes?

Perhaps. Perhaps. P for.

Comments

[charlie-bz.livejournal.com]

Loved this: "...or the sensation you get when you're young and your back is to the warm earth and your eyes are closed against the sun and you can feel the spin the thrilling whirl and twist of the whole damn planet and you on top of it all."

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

merci mon charlie :))

[stoshagownozad.livejournal.com]

Hey glad to see your fics and jorneys (even if they are through the carpet - so sad!)

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

and glad to see you - despite fiery smoke and ash :(((

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

but a smile for Yu of course! :))))