Mike, or ‘Mad Mike’ as he had been dubbed by the locals for some time, was not known to be a man of science. To be honest, science hadn’t been one of his strongest subjects at school but thanks to the wonders of modern technology and the ease of access to great learning tools such as ‘Youtube’, weird and wonderful projects were a click of the button away. He’d spent months planning the event right down to providing enough food for his four cats and buying a second-hand motorhome that would also serve as a base for operations.
“I bet you fifty bucks you can’t make that jump,” Rosita had declared, waving little more than a couple of fives between her fingers although he would have given that up for a kiss. That was probably why he had been staring down the makeshift wooden ramp knocked up in an afternoon at the back of his parents' place, wondering how the hell he was going to get his bike over the three forty gallon drums that loomed before him like a mountain range.
He rubbed the half circle scar on his forearm, left after it caught the edge of the last drum. Mike thought of that day and how he received neither the fifty bucks or the kiss. He thought of Bill, Stedman and Priscilla, friends at college who had convinced him the moon landings were staged, JFK was an inside job and that jets were emitting chemicals to control the population. He may not have got the girl and just because he was a taxi-driver living out of a mobile home, his moment in the sun was about to be recognised. After several months of design, construction and welding, the ‘Flat-Earth’ steam-powered rocket would finally prove that the world was flat and the images the world had been fed were a giant cover-up.
With the steam at the correct psi, the weather clear and no overhead air traffic, Mike released the final tether to the earth and immediately he was thrust back into his seat. Sensing he had been shooting upwards for what seemed an eternity he prepared to eject the canopy and float back to earth while he could enjoy the view and declare his mission a success.
Blackness.
‘I’ll see what they say,” he said and spoke into his mike to invisible people responsible for directing traffic in the sky.
He nodded to his colleague and pulled back on the joy stick in preparation for guiding the craft into the darker blue from the lighter hue. The patient, now awake, was advised to look out the window. His horizontal view was the vertical image for his two medical travellers, his eyes straining out to the horizon where he could just make out a gentle curve.
His scar ached.
Andrew Hawkey
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