Fly

I can do this.  No way am I going to back out now. I’m going to ride this jet towards that volcano, and I’m going to make it explode into a thousand pieces. That’s right. I’m going to kill that volcano. I have a pilot’s license, and I have a jet. I have everything I need. I waited seventeen years to do this. There’s no way I’m backing out now.

I pulled the gears and felt the engine hum in response. As I took off for flight, I thought back on how everything started, on why I am so intent on making that volcano disappear from the face of the earth.

It was seventeen years ago when I was still ten. I can still remember how my brother and sisters were playing outside. I can recall my mother. She had olive skin and shiny black hair. My siblings and I were like that too. During that time, there was no longer the ‘things-growing-out-of-the-ground, which I later learned were called trees. They became extinct, and the people relied on stone to compensate for that loss. It was terribly hot too. The air conditioning wasn’t all that enough, and electricity was far too expensive. To compensate for that, the government built giant electric fans that ran on the heat energy emitted around the active volcano a few miles from our neighborhood. The wind given off by these electric fans blew the hot air towards the sea and replaced that hot air with cooler air thus making it a bit more bearable for the people.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

My mother asked me that once. I told her I wanted something like a pilot. I forgot why. All I know now is that me wanting to be a pilot must have been fate. I was fated to blow that volcano to smithereens and have its minerals exploited by the people. It was what I was born to do. Seventeen years didn’t make me remember any less of that horrible day. Nothing can make me remember less of what that volcano did.

That volcano killed my family and my hometown. It’s its fault. It suddenly exploded. No warning at all. If you were wondering about the rumblings of the ground it gives off, it has always given that off, even before the giant electric fans were made, even before it became a trend for men to wear their pants by their knees, and even before NASA let a chimp astronaut build its own colony on Mars.

My mother had one dream. She said that she wanted to see the ‘things-growing-out-of-the-ground’. Well, her dream ended years ago when the whole area drowned in flaming, hot lava. Imagine. All of those dreams swept underneath that molten rock. My sister wasn’t able to meet the fairy queen. My brother wasn’t able to ride its first swallow like those Leafmen from that old movie years ago. My other sister didn’t become a princess, and my other, other sister didn’t even experience its first chocolate.

That’s why I’m going to avenge them. I’m going to make that volcano pay. Forget about my life. My hands are clamped so tightly on the gears. I was shaking badly, not from fear I must tell you. It’s from anticipation. After seventeen years, I can finally do it.

I can outline a big form miles ahead. It has come. This is it. All of my hard work has come to this day. I’m telling you, I’ll gladly die as soon as I see it explode.

Everything was ready, and I was ready to crash the jet into it when I saw something different beneath. Green? Huh? What the heck is that? I just went away for some years, and they renovated the whole place. If they were trying to copy the grasslands in Iceland, they will be sorry to know that they’ve made a rather poor imitation.

I looked closer.

Wait a minute. What? Are those… trees?

Since I was far too curious, I postponed my revenge and landed the jet on a clearing. I stepped outside and was amazed. Trees… trees are everywhere. Animals I’ve only seen in books were everywhere. What is this?

I asked a locale man, and he told me that the forest grew after the explosion seventeen years ago. Afterwards, the land stopped rumbling, and the place no longer smelled somewhat like sulfur. The volcano became extinct, meaning it’s dead already. It will no longer erupt like before.

What?

I looked up at the dark form that rose far away.

You’re dying on me now? You killed my family, and then you die. What?

Wait. Then what am I supposed to do now? What did I study all these years for? What have I come here for? How am I supposed to avenge my family now? There’s no point in destroying when it’s already dead. I mean: I’d be wasting my jet, not to mention my life, on something so fruitless.

Then I looked well around me. I can hear whispers. No, it’s not the ghost kind of whisper. I can hear whispers of life. I can feel life pulsating through my veins and all around me.

The blooming flowers… the shading trees… the beat of the sounds made by the forest animals… They were everywhere. Life is overflowing everywhere. What is this?

I looked at the volcano again.

What is this? If you think this is some sort of apology from years ago, then you’re dead wrong!

Then realization shot through me. I lied on the green earth before me and placed my hands over my face, feeling small trickles of salty water flow down my cheeks.

Fine. I get it. I accept the apology…

Stupid volcano… it’s not like I wanted its help… I was the one supposed to do it anyway…

 

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” 

  “I want to be someone who can fly, mama!” 

“Why?” 

  “Umm… what do you call those things that grow out of the ground again?” 

“They’re called ‘trees’, dear.” 

  “Yeah, that’s it! Ha, ha, ha! I’ll fly very, very high, and then I’ll look for trees for you, mama!”

__END__