by Zachary Howe
Gordie was surprised at the modernity of Heathrow Airport. Somehow he had expected every structure in London to look like their parliament building. Instead, the sleek curvature of the architecture with metal and glass infused in a vaulted spider web was just like O’Hare. For that matter, it made Chicago’s hub look outdated. He wondered why everything in airports was so white.
As Gordie was marveling at the futuristic aesthetics of the terminal, a mane of flowing maple hair caught his eye, and he saw Bridget fix him with one last indiscernible look before she headed off with her family. Was it disgust? Or did he possibly see regret and embarrassment? He hoped it had been the latter because it could be a good sign for him. Regardless, she was gone now and he wasn’t sure he would ever see her again.
He sighed and turned to his family. “So, which gate are we headed to?”
“Looks like we’re going to gate B4, but we have four hours until our next flight leaves, so we’re in no hurry,” Ellie said.
“Four hours? That’s bullsh—”
“Oh relax, you knew it was gonna be that long. I’m so sorry that traveling to a continent on the other side of an ocean takes half a day.” Ellie’s logic was inescapable, but Gordie would never admit that.
“Still think four hours is too long,” he grumbled under his breath.
“It could be longer. We’re lucky that they have a flight as early as four-thirty in the morning. Just be grateful.”
With a newfound and sincere gratitude, Gordie fell in line as they headed off towards their new gate. He was hungry, but all of the shops and restaurants were closed; this did nothing to improve his mood—the inflight meal was not sufficient to stave off grumpiness for long.
Airports were creepy at night. The most abundant people were maintenance workers, and whether or not it was Gordie’s imagination, scraggly travelers seemed shiftier at night. Individuals were milling around here and there. It was somehow disconcerting, unlike the hustle and bustle of thousands of angry people rushing past one another at midday. After five full minutes of walking, he started to get crabbier.
“Are we almost there?” Even Gordie was annoyed by how whiney he sounded.
“Jeez, kid,” Atalo said, “if a leisurely jaunt through the airport is overwhelming you, then I’m seriously concerned with your ability to cope with the task ahead.”
This remark had an effect so sobering that Gordie felt like he had been slapped in the face—forehand followed by a solid backhand, for good measure. His impending tantrum (for which even he recognized he was too old) took a back seat as he once again reflected on the path ahead of him, now further complicated by new information, namely, his encounter with the Fates. It occurred to him that this was probably something he should share with his family, but some part of him didn’t want to. A little voice in his head told him this was between Zeus and him, so Gordie decided, for better or worse, to keep his tea party with the sisters to himself.
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” he said.
Ellie gave him an approving nod. “That’s okay. It’s already been a long day and we still have more ahead of us. Let’s just get to our seats and take it easy for a while.”
They fell silent for the remaining two minutes of their walk as Gordie listened to their foot falls. Atalo’s long strides required fewer steps than Ellie’s and Gordie’s.
They took their seats when they reached the empty gate. Thankfully there was a television, but he was disappointed when he realized it was a twenty-four-hour news channel. He listened to the accents more than the words, catching key terms like “Syria,” or “North Korea.” He got lost in the cycle of the same stories for a couple hours, while replaying the images in his mind shown to him by the Fates, scored by an ancient and maniacal laugh echoing over the wrinkles of his brain. Then something caught his eye.
The scroll on the bottom of the screen read brief synopses of stories from around the world, but one in particular resonated with Gordie. Previously thought inactive underwater volcano erupts in Mediterranean Sea. His mind was wiped clean of preoccupations with his future and was replaced by a slew of pertinent questions for the present: Is it Hephaestus’s Volcano? What caused it? Was he in it? Would that kill him? If it was the immortal metallurgist’s volatile home, Gordie didn’t think an eruption would kill him because he was supposed to be immune to fire. Still, he wasn’t sure that this was a good omen.
“Did you guys see that?” he asked in hushed tones, despite their being alone in the desolate terminal.
“Huh? What?” Atalo asked, jolted out of a nap.
“No, what was it?” Ellie asked as she looked up from her magazine.
“The news line just said that an underwater volcano erupted in the Mediterranean,” Gordie continued in a whisper like he was telling a ghost story around a camp fire. Ellie’s eyes narrowed as she began a relentless scrutiny of the news, while her father’s reaction was far less reserved.
“No way!” Atalo said. “You don’t think it’s Hephaestus? What is that about?” he said, his eyes wide and alive as he also turned his attention to the TV.
“I have no idea, but I doubt it’s a coincidence,” Gordie said. Atalo was watching the TV with glee while Ellie’s look was far more troubled. She began chewing her nails, occasionally glancing at her son, yet not so stealthily that Gordie was unable to recognize the reawakened angst in her eyes. He chided himself for letting this slip—too late now. They all watched the scroll stream past for fifteen minutes. Finally, Ellie broke the silence.
“What do you think this means, Dad?” She almost sounded like a scared little girl.
“I don’t know, Ellie, but something is definitely going on.”
Then Ellie said something that Gordie was dreading, but wholeheartedly expecting, “Maybe we should go back.”
“No,” Gordie said so firmly that it startled his mom. “We came this far already, we are not going back.”
“Well, what do you expect to do?” Her voice was rising. “If you think I am going to let my son walk into an active—”
“Wait a second!” Atalo interjected. “We don’t even know that it’s the same volcano.”
“Save it, Dad! You know as well as I do which volcano it is, and that is enough of a sign for me to come to my senses and recognize it is time to go home!”
“No,” Gordie said again. Ellie’s wide-eyes were trained on him with a mixture of anger and fear, but he kept his voice calm. “We knew going into this that there would be danger. I can’t go home now.” Gordie prepared himself for what he had to say next with a deep breath. “But maybe you should.”
Ellie’s eyes narrowed into one of the most dangerous looks Gordie had ever seen. “First of all, Son,” she growled, “you do not tell me what to do. Secondly, there is no way in hell that I am leaving you. Now what exactly do you think we can do on this little excursion if our destination blew up?”
“We change the plan. We adapt. Stick-to-itiveness. Isn’t that what you always preached to me. Focus? Motivation? Where did all that go?” Gordie was very pleased with this argument, which used her own words against her, but she was not amused.
“First of all,” she repeated herself, apparently too incensed to care about sounding like a broken record, “I didn’t know you ever listened to me.” If she hadn’t been so angry at the moment Gordie would have laughed, but he thought that might have horrifying ramifications at present. “Secondly, this is different. This isn’t about doing homework or going to practice. This is life and death. It is time for you to appreciate the magnitude of the situation.”
Suddenly, Gordie was no longer amused. Her suggestion that he did not appreciate the severity of the situation, when she knew full well that he had been the first to find his dad’s lifeless body, pushed him over the edge.
“I don’t appreciate the magnitude? Me?! Because it seems that you are the only one delusional enough to think we can just go home and carry on with our lives. Do I need to remind you that we don’t have a ho
me anymore? It’s gone! Along with Dad!”
Without realizing it, Gordie had jumped to his feet and was yelling. His eyes were bulging as he looked upon his wounded mother, whose anguished face began to infect his conscience with remorse, but before he had time to backtrack, he was hoisted into the air.
“You ungrateful little—”
“Put him down, Dad!” Ellie said, because her father had grabbed Gordie by the collar with two powerful hands and lifted him up to his eye level, leaving his feet to dangle above the ground. Atalo ignored his daughter as he peered into Gordie’s soul like the sun incinerating an ice cube unfortunate enough to gravitate towards it.
“If you ever speak to your mother like that again, I will knock every last tooth out of your mouth,” he said. Gordie was dumbfounded and terrified. He just gaped, open-mouthed, as Atalo’s eyes darted back and forth between his own. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his mom’s hand grasp her father’s shoulder.
“It’s okay, Dad.” Ellie’s voice had returned to a soothing hush. “Just put him down. I’m all right.”
With one last threatening look, Atalo set his grandson back on his feet. The minute he was released, Gordie turned and ran to the nearest bathroom. He heard his mom shouting for him to come back, but he ignored her as he sprinted into the lavatory.
He walked over to the nearest sink and looked at himself in the mirror before he burst into tears. The enormity of everything had finally come crashing down on him and he realized that his mom was right: he didn’t appreciate the magnitude of the situation, but he thought he was starting to. He was now recognizing the tremendous sacrifice his family was making to accompany him here, and the shame of his behavior swelled into a fresh wave of tears. Images of his dead father returned to haunt him again, along with those faces of his dead classmates. The weight of it all was so much that it forced him into the fetal position, and he lay crying under the sink in the empty airport bathroom.
When the shudders began to dissipate and Gordie came to his senses, the fact that he was curled up on a bathroom floor started to seep into his consciousness. On the bottom of the porcelain sink he had been hiding beneath, he saw a red and green smear. He wondered if the smell accosting his nose was emanating from that, and decided it was likely wafting from one of the stalls. He unraveled himself and crawled out of his nook to face his reflection in the mirror again. He rinsed his face and took steadying breaths. When he looked back up from the sink, the mirror reflected two Leonharts.
“Mom, this is a men’s bathroom!” Gordie screeched as he wheeled around.
“Oh relax, there’s no one in here.” Ellie walked over to her son and grabbed him by the shoulders. Still raw from his violent encounter with his grandfather, Gordie flinched at her touch, causing deep sadness to well in her eyes.
“I-I’m sorry, Mom.”
“No, sweetheart, I’m sorry. It wasn’t fair of me to say what I did. I’m just . . . well, I’m scared,” she said, as if she were confessing a terrible secret.
“I know. I am too,” he said. Ellie pulled Gordie into a hug and stroked his hair.
“Grandpa’s sorry about what he did,” she said as she pulled away from him after a few minutes of silent embrace. “I think we’re all just a little on edge with this whole business.” A little twinge of anger towards his grandpa flared inside Gordie, but he tried to staunch it for his mom’s sake.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Why don’t we go back out there—there’s only about an hour left before we start boarding.” Gordie nodded and allowed his mother to lead him out with her arm around his shoulders. The skirtless stick-figure waved them goodbye from his place near the exit.
When they returned they were no longer the only ones at the gate. There were a couple people scattered around. Gordie and Ellie weaved their way toward Atalo. They sat down on the black leather seats and he asked, “You all right, Gordo?”
“I’m fine.”
“Okay,” Atalo said, before turning his attention back to the news.
They sat in silence while the gate filled with more travelers. There was an attractive girl with her family around Gordie’s age, but it didn’t quite pique his interest as much as usual. He even caught her sneaking glances at him every once in a while, but he ignored it. It seemed she liked the broody, I-don’t-give-a-shit look, but Gordie really didn’t give a shit at that moment.
After an extended period of actively not watching the news in silence, a chipper English voice came over the PA system. “Attention: all passengers flying Aegean Airlines flight 605, we will now begin boarding groups one and two. Groups one and two please prepare for boarding.” Ellie handed Gordie his ticket and he looked down to see group five printed on it, row 29, seat F.
“Looks like I’m alone this time,” Ellie said with a glance at her son. “Unless you wanna trade seats, Dad.”
Gordie bit his lip, hoping Atalo would take the bait because, after their confrontation, he didn’t think he was ready to be alone with his grandpa. Unfortunately, Atalo didn’t feel the same way.
“No, that’s fine, Ellie,” he said, his old joviality returned. “Me and Gordo can chat.”
Crap.
“Okay, that’s fine with me,” Ellie said, and she gave Gordie an apologetic look.
Gordie returned to moody silence until their group was called. Ellie was two rows ahead of them; he hoped that was close enough to rescue him if need be. As they funneled through another jet-way and onto the plane, Gordie and Atalo separated from Ellie, who took her allotted seat ahead of them. At least F was a window seat so Gordie could ignore his grandpa with the pretense that he was watching the landscape roll by. They took their seats. Atalo’s broad shoulders seemed to fill the entire row, his long arms resting on both armrests. A smallish, Greek-looking man showed up at their row and checked his ticket a couple times to make sure he indeed had to sit down next to this aged giant. After a couple of double takes, he decided it was true, and he sidled into his spot with a look of resignation. Gordie laughed to himself.
A couple minutes of silence ensued where Gordie watched the grounds people scuttle around, preparing the plane in the dark—little wisps of steam escaping from beneath their hoods through the light drizzle—until he felt a tap on his shoulder. He sighed as he knew this was eventually coming, and turned to face his grandpa whose features were far less ferocious than the last time they had held eye contact. In fact, he looked downright pained.
“I just wanted to apologize, Gordo,” he paused, “for what I did earlier.”
“It’s okay, Grandpa. I understand.”
“No, you don’t, kiddo. You might think you do, but you won’t ‘til you have kids of your own someday. She may be your mom, but never forget, she’s also my daughter. I shouldn’t have acted that way, but it’s a father’s job to protect his children,” he said, rather sadly.
“All right,” Gordie conceded. “I’m sorry, too.”
“One more thing,” Atalo said, and Gordie strained not to roll his eyes. “I know it’s a crappy excuse, but I’ve always had a bad temper.”
“You’re right—that is a crappy excuse.”
“I know!” Atalo chuckled. “But listen, I got my temper from my dad who got it from his dad. Sure enough, I passed it down to your mom, and let’s not kid ourselves—you’ve got it in spades. It’s just in our blood, I guess. I never made an effort to overcome it in my life, and now, sometimes it just takes hold of me.” He sighed deeply. “Don’t be like me. Don’t let it rule you.”
Gordie considered this for a moment. He did have a temper. He remembered breaking his grandfather’s table just after the incident. Then again, it was hours after his father had been killed: who wouldn’t be mad? He felt the anger rush back to him and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. It really did run in the family.
“I’ll try to control it, Grandpa. Now can we just move on please?”
“Sounds good to me, Gordo!” Atalo slapped him on the shoulder, all of
his old gaiety returned. With that, Gordie sat back in his seat and smiled, feeling relieved as they pulled away from the gate and prepared for takeoff.
“So, what do you think of that news, Gordo?” Atalo asked.
Gordie shot him a questioning look meaning, ‘Should we really be talking about this here?’
“You worry too much,” Atalo said. “Nobody knows what we’re talking about.” His careless attitude made Gordie nervous, but he was curious.
“I don’t know. What do you think we should do now?”
Atalo shrugged and said, “I don’t see why our plans need to change.”
“Are you kidding?” Gordie asked. “Maybe because the volcano erupted?”
“Oh, whatever. I’m sure it’ll be fine. We’ll figure it out when we get there.”
Again, Gordie questioned his shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach, but he did not want to start another argument.
“If you say so,” he said, before looking back out the window. The plane had just started to hurtle down the runway before it shot off into the lightening sky. Gordie watched the asphalt melt away as they raced over it, and then watched the buildings and trees conform into meaningless congregations as they ascended, leaving the safety of earth behind. After ten minutes or so, they were rumbling through the clouds and bursting out triumphantly above them, where the dawn was far more brilliant. The sun was visible up above the white sea, illuminating the top of the floating pillows that marked the border between this world and the one below. The captain made a garbled announcement about cruising altitude and the seatbelt light, which dinged into extinction after the PA cut out.
Despite the glowing sun, Gordie began to realize that it was now close to midnight from where he hailed, and that he had been awake for nearly seventeen hours. His eyelids began to droop with the weight of this knowledge, and before long, he was fast asleep.