problems.
The passengers of the small plane struggling in the storm, with its engines under pressure to stay in running order, rented it from a less than reparable source because no one with any sense wanted to fly into the destination they had in mind and also going out into the storm patterns that were being forecasted was downright stupid.
In the future Downright Stupid will be on the United Earth flag.
Not really, it’s Downright Immovable.
We don’t get any less egotistic in the future.
The small three person plane went way off course because they did the stupid and the storm got worse and worse because that’s what big storms do to stupid people, they put you in very not so fun situations and laugh the whole way through.
When the plane started going down there was no flash or lightning strike or smoke from the engines to signal melodramatically that it was bad.
It was.
It was very very bad.
Just suddenly all the systems of the plane stopped working and it began to drop out of the sky.
The pilot said something about there being no reason they should be dropping like this. That the winds should be throwing them around in the sky a bit but before anyone could think on that quandary of a thought it was crash time.
Random thoughts during crash time: Why did that lady at the airport ask him if he knew when the next Rush album was coming out? The last time anyone touched his neck in that way was the gardener. Death Note and Saved By The Bell, same story, different cultures?
Ian and Jeremy knew they were lucky to be alive after the crash.
Hell, if you could have been there on the ground and seen anything in that weather you would have thought it pretty cool to see the sight of a plane crashing ass first.
Their Russian pilot wasn’t so lucky having died in the crash.
But he was just a story extra so no worries.
Both of them were banged up and bruised like a tackle dummy on a football field but having discovered that the crash did not in fact leave them with any serious injuries, like missing fleshy part, they now have moved on to dealing the situation they have found themselves in.
Neither one of them have ever had something like this happen to them in their lives. This is such an extreme from most of their life moments it’s a surprise they didn’t go into shock and curl up into fetal positions.
No one they know would have predicted them surviving through a situation like this but even though the rich have a hard time keeping a grip on the real world, sometimes even the rich can bolt from the blue and surprise you.
Both Ian and Jeremy come from a rich money youth upbringing and then college for years well paid for by families with enough money to make sure they walked away with really nice pieces of paper. Then it was jobs at the best research facility, not internships, jobs.
When we have obstacles in our way it strengthens us to the things we may end up facing. Yes sometimes those obstacles can also break us but they can each one make us stronger if we are able to keep fighting and get to the other side.
When you grow up from when you lived a life with fewer obstacles, you have less scars but you also have a smaller quantity of defenses when you run into a wall that just won’t get the fuck out of the way.
And yes having sometimes faced fewer obstacles can give you a better outlook on life but don’t mistake a better outlook for a real one.
Ian was trying to secure up the remains of the crashed plane against the storm. Once when he was 12 his father wanted him to get to know the more outlined members of the family so he was sent to stay for a week with an uncle in Colorado.
The outlined uncle owned a ranch and decided to take the rich boy out into the wilderness to learn a lesson about how normal people have to deal with life. They both rode out on horses to a spot the outlined uncle use to take his own son to.
This was the first time Ian had ever been on a horse and one day wasn’t enough to prepare him for a long ride out into snow covered mountains. As soon as they got away from the uncles ranch Ian’s horse bolted out of control.
The uncle was in pursuit but he wasn’t focused so he didn’t see that his nephews horse had ran around a patch of ice by instinct. He rode his straight and forward. The ice broke right away and engulfed both the horse and rider.
Ian’s horse carried him into a canon and it was there that the horse decided it didn’t like him one little bit and bucked him off.
At first Ian just panicked and sat in the snow but then he slowly started walking. The cold winds attacked his lungs. The frostbite attacked his toes and fingers. Something within him though kept him going, something no one would have ever guessed he possessed. His uncle wouldn’t have guessed. His father wouldn’t have guessed. And neither would have Ian.
Jeremy searched the crashed plane for supplies. He has always had a compulsion for making lists, cataloguing things. When things go wrong he goes into this protective state. His family has sent him to doctors to try and “turn him normal” but instead he just learned to not do it all the time.
One of those doctors said he thinks Jeremy developed this tick because of something that happen to him when he was five.
Because everything happens to us when we are five.
Jeremy was attending a school event. Someone dressed in some costume based on some television show was left alone with a classroom of children. The man in the costume started moving around the room punching the kids but before he got to Jeremy who had been waiting as he made his way around the room a security guard burst into the room and attacked the man.
The guard was praised as a hero and Jeremy left that classroom that day the only one who wasn’t attacked, wasn’t hurt, and the only reason because he was the last one in a long line. His mind from that point on wanted to find reason for any grouping of items, items like human beings or supplies on a crashed plane.
Ian and Jeremy had only just met a few weeks before the plane trip and really so far hadn’t hit it off to be honest. You put a rich boy and poor boy alone in a room they might get along despite their differences. You put a rich boy and rich boy alone in a room, they won’t get along.
It’s just science.
Well, not really science but from my observations that’s what I’ve seen. Two rich boys can be bros with other bros around be when forced to consume the same air just between two of them they will fight for the attention of the air every time.
Just about every time.
Well, almost every time.
It’s just science.
Ian and Jeremy were in Russia as part of a scientific research team hoping to find out the reasons for the unexplained increase levels of undignified radiation. This was very important to them because it could make their careers really early in their careers and quiescently both of their fathers once said, “Start building your empire early and your life is your empire.”
The pilot died on impact as the plane came into contact with the ground ass first. His character was boring and doesn’t deserve any sort of back story so stop thing about him.
Extra are just extras afterall.
What? Ok, the guy was a bastard; he touched little boys, you going to let me move on now?
Ian’s specialty is radiation pros and cons using layman’s terms.
I like layman’s terms.
My gf just said I am a layman’s term.
Layman’s terms save on research but not for lazy reasons because they are of no use to a lazy writer, because you have to be creative when using simpler terms.
They are also good for a writer a little high on sleeping pills.
Just sharing.
Jeremy’s focus of study is the impact of radiation on the natural world. He doesn’t do any real independent thinking though. All he does is read machinery and writes up the data for smarter people to review. His parents didn’t have enough money to make him smart, just make him look smart.
None of that does either of them any good when it comes to this
survival situation. All of the paid off teachers and put in their place untouchables and they might as well be certified accountants because it didn’t have any merit on their current state of affairs.
They both were resting from what they had been doing. Within the plane’s wreckage was silence. They really hadn’t said hardly a word to each other since the crash except for Ian saying he was going to try and seal the plane off from the elements and Jeremy saying he would take inventory of supplies the only sounds being heard was from the storm outside.
As thirty minutes passed even the outside sounds passed away to a sort of hum in their ears, sort of like having wind chimes hanging outside your door.
A knock on the outside of the plane startled them from the silence. Both of them gave out a quick little laugh that sometimes crops up in seemly inappropriate moments such as during sex or right before something kills you dead.
A voice coming from the outside slowed down their hearts to a possibility of hope that there could be a percentage of a chance that they might live through this and in certain circumstances even a slight percentage can be everything.
For some reason they kept quiet and looked at each other as if asking a million questions of optimism. It was an instinctive reaction along the lines of a guard dog sensing a person on the other side of the door and knowing they need to keep quite.
‘Anyone alive in there?’ asked the voice from outside the wreckage, ‘There’s shelter nearby. Anyone alive in there?’
Ian and Jeremy snapped out of their silence and stillness
Tin Universe Monthly? #18 Page 2