Flightsuit

by Deaderick, Tom

  "When I wake up in the morning, they still feel here with me. Through the day, I'll be carrying wood and walk past the little grassy spot where we played and ate sandwiches that Maggie made. I remember them. That's what I want. If I leave this place behind, I'd be separated from those memories. Pictures can't bring back the feeling of a place or the way it feels to be there and see the same sky and trees that you saw together."

  Leo shifted to sit up. "I'm sorry Leo, I wasn't thinking. We'd better be getting you home again. I'm sure your mom must be worried sick over you. Let me throw some things in a pack and we'll head out."

  Ethan opened a closet and rummaged out an old leather backpack. He thought for a moment, and then pulled a fresh white t-shirt from a shelf in the closet. It was still in plastic wrap. There was a lot of crinkling as Ethan unwrapped it. Leo saw a neat little stack of them, all still in plastic wrap. Ethan flipped the t-shirt and a brand new stiff pair of jeans over his shoulder. While Ethan pulled other items from the little closet drawer, Leo looked at the pictures laying all around him on the bed.

  The photos were mostly black and white. The few colored ones were so faded that the colors were almost an outline. Leo looked at the pictures of Ethan's son. The boy looked so alien. It was hard to imagine him laughing and playing like a normal boy would. It would be like watching some crazy old man pretending to be a boy, Leo thought. There were just a few pictures that looked like they weren't taken in a hospital.

  Ethan came back wearing the fresh shirt and jeans and smiled seeing Leo looking at the photos.

  "Are you ready?" Ethan asked. "We are going to have to walk for a couple miles. I have a truck but there aren't any roads out here, so I leave it parked at Ron McAllister's place. I hardly ever use it."

  "I've seen that truck," Leo told him.

  "Do you feel up to walking?"

  "Yes, I feel ok now. It's not heavy at all. I just have to be careful not to bump it around or that spike sticks," Leo told him.

  Ethan helped him up. Closer now, Leo could make no more sense of the carved wooden shapes. "What are those?" Leo asked.

  Ethan followed Leo's eyes to one of the carvings. He picked up the one Leo thought was a bear and passed it to him. "I carve things," Ethan told him. "I've been doing it since I was a boy. It rests my mind to create things."

  Leo looked at the wooden figure. It was very detailed. It was definitely not a bear.

  It looked like a bent-over peanut. One end was a large single eye with a thick, heavy eyelid. The folds of the eyelid gave the little shape a gloomy look. The carving was very detailed. The creature's single large eye had a smooth lip marking its iris, and inside that an overly-large pupil. Fold upon fold of skin protected the eyelid. The other side of the peanut shape had two squat and slow-looking legs. The two feet had large toenails, like an elephant's. There were no arms on the sad-looking thing. The wrinkles and skin texture were so meticulously carved over the entire shape that Leo thought they looked just like a real creature would look, if it existed.

  Leo, held the figure up, "What is it?" Leo asked.

  "I don't give them names," Ethan told him. "I just create them. That one lifts things with its mind. It doesn't need arms or hands. They are the highest life form on their rainy planet. They look gloomy, but they aren't really. There's something peaceful about them. They're slow, so everything they do is deliberate and considered long beforehand."

  Leo looked at Ethan.

  The way Ethan described the creature was as detailed as the lines he'd carved into it. It didn't seem to Leo like a made-up creature that didn't exist, but just one that he'd never seen.

  "It passes the time," Ethan said.

  "It looks so real. You…did a great job" said Leo. He'd like to ask if it was real, but was afraid of what the man's answer might be. If he says its real, then what? He'd be crazy then. I don't want to be up here all alone with someone that's just said something crazy.

  "I don't know where the ideas come from," Ethan said, staring at nothing over Leo's shoulder. "I imagine them I guess. I've tried to carve real things, but I never get the details right, its harder to rely on memory of a real thing than to envision one you've never seen."

  Leo wasn't sure whether he'd just told him the little figure was real or imagined. Could be worse, he thought.

  "Some of them go together," Ethan said, looking around. "That one on the table goes with this one. They hate each other. The one that looks like a scrawny man with bat wings for arms is vicious. It hunts the slow-movers, but its dying out because it reproduces slowly."

  "I have many more of them," Ethan said. "I'd love to show them to you, but first we need to get that thing off you. Are you ok to walk?"

  Leo didn't answer. He was looking at the table.

  Ethan asked "What? What's wrong?"

  Leo didn't answer. He leaned over and nudged aside a picture frame to pick up a dusty wooden figure. It had two arms and two legs like a man, but the part that had caught Leo's attention was its two long flat fingers.

  He held the figure up into the sunlight. The carving was posed in a squat, with its knees bent close to the ground. One long arm reached down to the ground in front. Those fingers curled into knuckles. The other arm braced on its thigh with its fingers dangling open. Leo turned the figure to better see the carved fingers. He raised his left arm and looked at the sleeve's flattened fingers. They were the same.

  He looked up at Ethan for an explanation. Ethan stared slack-jawed at the figure.

  Leo asked quietly, "You carved this?" He wasn't sure what answer he wanted.

  Ethan didn't respond for a few seconds. He seemed to be asking himself the same question. "I…I…" Then "Yes, I guess I did."

  "You don't remember carving it?"

  "No. I mean yes. I remember carving it."

  "It's the same as the sleeve, though," said Leo. "You see that its hand is the same as the sleeve's hand right?"

  "It does look the same," replied Ethan, although he didn't seem very certain.

  "Yeah," said Leo. "It's clearly the same. Look at how long the arm is compared to the fingers." He held the sleeve out by comparison. "It's the same." He looked up at Ethan watching closely. "Where did you see this?"

  Ethan was clearly struggling with the idea that one of the creatures he'd carved could be real. He sat back in one of the wooden chairs, missing half of it, and almost fell. He adjusted back to the center, staring at Leo's gloved fingers. He didn't say anything.

  Finally, Leo asked again, "Ethan. Where did you see this?" He held up the figure. Ethan's eyes slowly moved off the sleeve to the figure, then he met Leo's eyes.

  "I've never seen it. Like I said, I've never seen any of the things I carve. They're all just made up."

  "Well, this one is definitely not made up. Right? You can see this is the same hand right?" Leo was getting impatient with Ethan's reluctance to admit something so obvious.

  "I see it," Ethan said. "It's the same." He still shook his head in disbelief.

  "Well? Where did you get the idea?"

  "I just dream about things like that. I dream about them. In the dreams sometimes I'm somewhere else that doesn't look or smell like anyplace I've ever been. The plants are all different colors and the houses don't look right. I get involved with these things. Sometimes they are friendly like those." Ethan motioned to the sad, peanut-looking thing. "And sometimes they're dangerous and we're trying to get away from things like those." He pointed to the bat thing with long spiked wings.

  Leo asked, "We?"

  "What?"

  "You said 'We're trying to get away'. Are you with the peanut things when they are trying to get away from the bats?"

  "Yes, or sometimes other creatures. There are several other dangerous creatures there. One is a cat that as big as a rhino. Those dreams are always terrible. We're running from one place to another trying to hide. I wake up exhausted."

  "So you dreamed about this one," Leo asked holding up the crouched figure. "You dre
amed about something that wore this?" He held up the sleeve.

  "I guess so. Although I have no idea how that could be."

  Leo looked at him uncertainly, but Ethan could only shrug.

  "I think…I dreamed, I mean, that they call themselves 'Explorers'. They discovered all of the others. They're the ones who travel. Sometimes we're running from them." Ethan paused, then looked up into Leo's eyes, "they are dangerous."

  Afraid to hear the answer, Leo asked anyway "Why are they dangerous, Ethan?"

  "I don't remember. I don't think they eat the others like the rhino cats or the bats, but all of the others are scared of them anyway. I don't know why we run away from them."

  Leo didn't like the way the adult-child role felt reversed now. Seeing Ethan confused only made him feel more afraid. He wanted to bring back the confident Ethan who was going to take care of him. He said, "Its ok. Listen there's nothing bad about it, right?" And before Ethan could answer something else, he said "Right. It's just a funny dream you had."

  "A few weeks ago, I dreamed that the people of a village came to me to help them save the village. In the dream they were sheep farmers. I told them they should mow a checkerboard pattern into one of their hills and use black and white sheep for chess pieces. The players would be shepherds. They had to get the right sheep to move to the right square by voice only," Ethan said. He paused, watching Leo's eyes. "But that's probably not related," Ethan finished.

  Leo stared, trying to read Ethan's serious face. When Ethan suddenly laughed, Leo felt such a rush of relief that he laughed loudly too. For some reason, even though none of his circumstances had changed, Leo felt relieved. He didn't think that a crazy person would laugh at himself. As bad as his situation was, it would definitely be much worse if Ethan was some kind of nut job.

  Ethan shoved some peanut candy bars into the pack, and then sat down on the edge of the wooden chair to be eye-to-eye with the boy. He'd always had a rapport with children, even before Ray was born. He knew it was cliché to think of children as innocents, but it was cliché for good reason – it was usually true. Kids would do mischief, and they'd try to get around the boundaries of any restriction placed on them. They weren't angels. But he'd never met one who consciously worked to harm another either.

  He'd read the Bible, gone to church, and he believed in God. Alone and lonely, having lost everyone he loved long ago, God was still real for Ethan, and he waited for purpose to come back into his life. There were times he felt close to Him and times that he felt very distant and disconnected. The greatest connection he ever felt with God was when he held his baby son, humming through the same tune over and again. Softly bouncing with Ray in his arms and the setting sun shafting light through the trees, he felt Ray's little struggles relax into sleep. He never felt God was greater than in those moments. All creation, the mountains, the seas, unseen planets – all were less evidence of God, for Ethan, than Ray.

  "I don't understand what's happening either," he told Leo, smiling reassurance. "I see what's happening, but I don't know why. I've spent a long time putting one foot in front of the other, and getting up every day without being able to find answers to all of the 'why' questions I have. We might not be able to find out why this is happening, but we can work through it together anyway."

  It was as if a breath passed through Leo and calmed his fear. Since finding the sleeve, everything had happened too quickly to process. He'd just been falling from step to step without thinking through his situation. At first everything seemed happenstance, but being found by a person who had somehow dreamed of the…creature? Alien? Seeing that Ethan had dreamed of the creature whose sleeve he was wearing made Leo believe that rather than just a series of chance events, he was part of some plan that fit together in some, as yet, unknowable way – that made him feel a little better. It would be even more terrifying to think that things just happened for no reason at all.

  As Ethan turned around to collect the pack, Leo looked at the crouching figure again. It's long, muscular arms joined thick shoulders. The head was squat, tight against the body with a round forehead and heavy brows. Behind its head, from the crown of its squat head down to its shoulders, the neck stepped down. It was strange to see such square geometric shapes on a creature. There seemed no neck at all, but the eyes bulged like a chameleon so it probably didn't need to turn its head to see sideways. It had a rock-slab jawline that looked like it might be able to bite hard into something, like a snapping turtle or alligator. The bony upper lip covered just the top of the bottom one with two big tusks jutting up from the lower jaw. It looked fearsome, Leo decided. It wasn't hard to believe other creatures might fear it.

  He looked into its tiny wooden glaring eyes and thought, it wants its sleeve back.

  Ethan turned back around. He gently took the figure from Leo and put it on the table. "Do you think you can walk ok Leo?"

  "Yes, it doesn't hurt me unless I try to lift my arm."

  They stepped outside. Ethan locked the door with a key that he put back into his pocket.

  "Stay here Oscar," Ethan told the dog, although the dog didn't seem inclined to go anyway. Oscar walked arthritically over to lay under the windowsill.

  The house looked little different from the deserted houses Leo usually explored. The paint was almost totally peeled off the gray boards. As Leo stepped off the wooden porch onto large stones stacked as steps, he looked back at the house. The tin roof didn't have any holes or ripped sections like some of the houses did, but the roof was still rusted red-brown.

  The grass was shorter around the house.

  "I have one of those mowers with blades that spin as the wheel turns," Ethan told him. I mow the yard every couple of weeks, so it looks like it used to, but if I miss a few weeks it gets away from me."

  A wooden box frame surrounded a thin layer of sand with weeds sprouting through. Weeds grew high around the edges of the frame. A rusted toy construction grader with "TONKA" imprinted sat partially buried along with other unrecognizable pieces of rusted and buried toys.

  Leo looked at the toys, imagining a little boy who looked like an old man playing in the sandbox, with those same toys. I guess, he thought, playing out here by himself he was just like a normal kid, building roads and houses in the sand. Listening to Ethan talk about the boy, Ray, in the house, Leo kept imagining him as a kid that died a few years ago. As Ethan talked, he pictured Ray playing with electronic toys, things that he'd play with himself, but seeing the sandbox made Leo wonder just how long ago the boy had last played here. Clearly, a long time. What was it that Ethan said about his wife? How long ago did she leave? He said he wasn't even sure she was still alive. At the time, Leo just assumed he was exaggerating or being sarcastic like adults do almost all the time. But looking at the rusty toys, he thought it might not have been sarcasm after all.

  He looked back at Ethan staring at the sandbox, probably remembering Ray playing there. His hair was brown with only a little bit of gray in it. His skin looked thick and healthy, not paper-thin like Leo's grandfather's skin. The backpack straps binding in the t-shirt pulled tight around his shoulders. He looked strong and fit to Leo. Although it had been years since he'd seen his father, he thought Ethan looked like a stronger, and nicer, man than he was. Ethan came up behind him and gently lifted the sleeve up to look at the map on his forearm. He asked, "You ok Leo?" Leo nodded and smiled back. "I just wanted to see if the map was changing as we walked".

  Looking at the map reminded Leo that another piece of the sleeve was nearby. Ethan was looking at the map intently, but hadn't yet worked out what the other orange blip might be.

  "That orange pinpoint of light is where I think the other piece of the sleeve, or whatever, is," he told Ethan. "I think we should look for it. Look how close we are."

  Ethan thought about it. Leo didn't seem to be in immediate danger, and he was curious to see how he'd missed spotting something that was as shiny and white as the glass-metal sleeve so close to his house.

&nbs
p; "Ok," Ethan said, "If you start to feel dizzy or anything though we'll give up and just get you home. Wait here. I'll get a shovel in case we need to dig."

  He came back with the shovel, and Oscar following.

  "Looks like he decided to join our treasure hunt," Ethan said smiling. "I'll send him back once we get on our way."

  "How old is he?" asked Leo.

  "Two," Ethan told him.

  28

  The marker brought them to a pile of old boards and rusted tin sheets.

  Ethan looked at it and then at the map Leo held up. "This was a sheep pen. I had a couple sheep. The boards were rotting, and it collapsed five or six years ago," Ethan informed him. "Try walking around the pen, and see if your orange marker completes a circle around the pen as you go. That will tell us for sure we're in the right place." Leo walked slowly around the collapsed pen, watching the sleeve's map. Returning to his starting point, he nodded to Ethan.

  Ethan stepped on top of the old tin roof and pulled a loose piece aside. The screeching metal against old nails made a horrible racket in the otherwise quiet woods. Leo looked around the clearing, nervous about making so much noise. He wasn't sure why, but he always tried to be quiet in the woods. On usual explorations of his green kingdom, he avoided dry branches or the rock scrabble that made surprisingly loud tumbling sounds if his step dislodged it. When he made noises, it ruined the natural feel as if the presence of even one person disrupted the forest's quiet contemplation. He liked the woods to forget he was there.

  Underneath the top pieces of the tin roof, they noticed that the sheets comprising the western face of the roof had a large hole, four feet in diameter. The edges all turned down. Ethan thought this would make sense if something fell out of the sky and crashed through the roof.

  Good thing it hit here, he thought, and not directly over my bed.