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Pre-Crash Checklist
October 20, 2006 in 299 Words, Books, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Literature, Poetry, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: Airport, Crash, Danger, Death, Monologue, Speech | by davidbdale | 2 comments
Slip the flat metal end into the buckle and pull the loose end to secure the belt around your hips. Get and remain comfortable. Passenger attitude is an essential component of airworthiness, which is not to say we could cause a crash by thinking about one, but why risk it. This aircraft is equipped with floor level lighting which will guide you toward the exit when the cabin fills with noxious smoke so thick you won’t see the wall of flame approaching row by row. Or at least it was designed to be so equipped and was once certified to have been so equipped, but the failure of a simple thermal switch never tested by the team subcontracted by this airline to conduct routine inspections will prevent even that laughably inadequate safety feature from providing you any life-sustainment. Sudden loss of cabin pressure, an event so unlikely it happens to fewer than one million passengers a year, will trigger trap doors in the overhead bin, spilling oxygen masks to some passengers. Yours will be functional. The thin plastic supply hose won’t kink as so many do in testing nor melt in the intense heat of the advancing inferno, but you’ll have swallowed so much smoke you’ll merely cough into the mask and, heaving forward, tear it from the pump. If only you had kept your belt secured around your hips. Blown backward by the blast from the baggage compartment, several seats from Row 8 will be wedged incongruously between the cabin ceiling and lucky Row 13, sealing off the exit door nearest you. Small comfort your seat cushion is a flotation device! Thank you for choosing to violate gravity with us today and if there is anything we can do to make you more uncomfortable, please hesitate to ask.
Copyright ©1997
Lightning on Tour
October 17, 2006 in 299 Words, Books, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Literature, Poetry, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: Art, Date, Flirt, Romance | by davidbdale | 2 comments
This is an easy one. What’s better: the date you plan and dress for, for which you make and confirm and reconfirm dinner reservations; the meal at the restaurant you’ve never been to and aren’t sure you’ll like, or he’ll like, but which you’ve been assured by women who don’t know him but who know men like him is the right choice for the guy you’ve staked out; the show you think your date would choose, based on what little you’ve been able to glean from the few small facts at your command plus considerable conjecture? Or the accidental thrill of a chance encounter with a friendly face through a revolving door at the airport one moment before your plane takes off toward a place you know only too well. For the guy it’s the encounter; for the girl it’s the plan.
What’s better? The masterpiece on tour, impeccably curated and catalogued for art-historical significance, deconstructed, virtually invisible, available only by appointment? Or a bold curve drawn in the dirt with the point of a shovel by a landscaper with a certain facility. The 6-piece playground kit, its corners sanded, planted in the park in its box of chips, its thick irresistible primary colors engineered by play scientists? Or a tree that’s fallen into the pond, whose trunk makes a bridge, whose roots still smell of lightning strike and anthills. For the kids it’s the treefall; for their dads it’s the treefall, too; the moms are still thinking about that date.
Maybe we could take in a museum, they think, and not look at paintings, just the frames. Or the window frames. Or out the windows. How is that different from staying home together and staring out the window? For one thing, he won’t encounter anyone else at home.
Copyright ©1997
Very Short Novels 