“Airplanes? What? What do you- Oh, that. I’m sorry but I don’t know anything about that”.
“Oscar you do realize I know that you’re the one that hits me with paper airplanes during work, we’ve been through this before”. I hear his voice break, “Wait, you know?”. Sigh, it’s like telling a kid Santa isn’t real. “I’m sorry Oscar, but I just want to know, I need to know how it works”.
“Do you also know I’m the one who moves everything on your desk half an inch to the left whenever you leave?”.
“God Damn it, Oscar! I knew I wasn’t imagining things! But that’s beside the point here, I have been trying to manipulate objects to make them float, and it hasn’t worked out” I hear a slight sniffle on the other side of the phone followed by “Manipulate the object? That’s not what you’re supposed to do.” I’m dumbfounded.
“Then what am I supposed to do?”.
“If I tell you… Will you do it to poke paper airplanes into MY head?”. I hang up. As I’ve said previously, everyone has breaking points, I’m like glass under a hydraulic press, and Oscar is a little kid messing with the controls. I’m craving sleep but decided on coffee. Never make this mistake.
9:17. Let me repeat that, 9:17 is when I woke up. How far am I from work? 15 minutes; with snow? Twenty to twenty-five.
I rush so fast I wear one of those uncomfortable socks where the seam is thick and rubs against your foot, I won’t figure this absolutely devastating fact out until I arrive at work. Even more upsetting, today in the morning I have my job at the MMP, hopefully they understand. After trekking through the snow I managed to make it by 9:38.
Normally I like to draw out the whole penny flip. I don’t get many times where I can pretend to be a hero, and normally that's now, but I don't even have time for that. I just hop in and somehow try to fall faster.
Once I am greeted by the heating, my limbs started defrosting and felt like static television. Despite avoiding me all of yesterday, once he caught sight of me, Mr. Harrison stomped over practically fuming from the ears, this is a very familiar situation for me.
Except he seemed a little taller, maybe before I arrived he put lifts in his shoes so he could look down on me more to add to the drama.
In Roman times I could’ve been killed for being this late, or not, I liked Greek history more, either way, Ned looked as if he could kill me.
“I HAVE NO WORDS FOR YOU MARON, YOU’RE FIRED!”.That was kind of quick.
“Can you even do that as assistant manager?”.
“WELL, WHAT DO YOU THINK?”.
“I dunno Ned, that's why I asked”.
He’s not my associate anymore so I see no reason to be polite, well, at least as polite as I was before.
The thing I am honestly most sad about is I have to go back into the snow right after getting feeling in my limbs again.
I go to collect everything from my desk. I’m about to go when a familiar feeling of a paper airplane hits my face. I look back to see Oscar’s blonde head peeking over the desk with puppy dog eyes. “Goodbye Oscar”. I go to toss it back when he quickly says “you can keep the plane”. I shrug and thank him on my way out, I also thank Ned by dropping by his office to steal his stapler.
If nothing else I have my mild acts of mayhem.
I don’t want to go back to the apartment to see my dad’s disappointed look, again. So try to find a building overhang without snow on the ground. I have a blanket mixed in my office supplies from when our heaters busted, right, such a quality company I sadly have to leave. I sit down and wait. Boring, very boring, I start sifting through my own stuff hoping there might be something I haven’t seen, probably not, except for Oscar’s paper airplane.
I grab it but it’s halfway under a stack of useless doodles I did when I was told to work, why am I surprised I got fired. When I finally get it out it unfolds partially and I see a flash of ink. I further unfold it to reveal a note.
“Hey Oscar here, I noticed I didn’t get to tell you about the airplanes last night. I guess your internet went out or something because for some reason it said you hung up in the middle of my sentence. Anyway, what I was talking about, you seem to be focusing on the object. Wrong Idea, focus on moving the air around it”.
The air around it… I refold the airplane and collect my thoughts. How should I go about this? Focusing on the object won’t work, so how do I focus on air; and then it hit me. The range, I can focus on the range like before instead of the object, but this time only focus on a small range surrounding the airplane. I close my eyes, the cold wind cuts at my cheeks, but I remain unbothered.
I concentrate until I hear nothing, slowly like it’s getting nearer, I hear the pulse. The soft buzzing starts to reverberate in my head. I open my eyes, I imagine the circle around the plane, I don’t focus on looking at the air, but rather I imagine the air pushing it. Not even hesitant, the plane lifts itself off the ground unnaturally to my will. The plane lifted about two feet from the ground, and remained still, so I attempted to change its course.
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Copying Oscar, I used my finger as a guide to move it around, I chuckle, this is progress.The moment was short-lived as my little plane gets swept by the wind and lands a couple of feet away. The daytime snowfall keeps it dark, and the wind makes it hard to see. I hop out of the comfort of my blanket to scrape my legs across the ground, the wind and snow are so loud I’m unable to hear my own footsteps.I get down on my knees and reach around not wanting to look toward the wind. I reach around until I finally feel something, it’s not the airplane.
Almost immediately the wind stops, the snow waits as if watching my next move. The sound of my breathing becomes noticeably loud.
I turn my head and gaze at the object to see my hand not on the airplane, but on a silver penny. The silver penny has an engraved on the side, “Ramirez”, the penny seemingly normal except for the drop of blood smeared across the face.
My own heartbeat seems to reach my eyes, they nearly pound out of their sockets, my whole body shivers, and a cold feeling reaches up my spine and grabs it like a hand of ice.
Leaves rustle behind me. I jump and only see the wind had pushed them. Not knowing what to do, being controlled by fear, I grab the airplane and the penny and head back to my apartment. Shame is much less important right now.
I leave the setting behind me, but If only I had looked closer, and seen the footprint in the snow…
I wouldn’t have gone back to the apartment.
My cheeks are red, and my palms are sweaty despite the overwhelming winter. What was that, why am I so scared? He probably just cut himself on the edge and dropped it. Yeah, that’s what happened he forgot it. He forgot it…
In all the rush I have dropped near half of my things from the office. But I don’t want to stop, and I definitely don’t want to look behind me, it just feels… dangerous. I just want to go home. I finally catch sight of the apartment and I start rushing, I arrive at the stairs and walk-up.
Not until now, not until I saw hope in sight did I let myself fully process this situation, this fear. My eyes had tears at their corners as I tried to jimmy the key. “Cmon… COME ON”.
The key turns the door open and fall on the other side. I let myself slump down. I laugh to myself, with tears in my eyes I laugh to myself “I’m safe”. My father walks in from his bedroom and raises an eyebrow at me “What you doing back already?”. His broken English is heartwarming when I’m feeling so scared. “Nothing dad just… sitting”.
I laugh again.” Hm Must’ve been hard walk in such deep snow”. Huh? I didn’t even notice it was deep, I look at my legs and they are nearly wet to the knee. “Wow, and it’s still going”, I look outside to see it, and my heart drops.
I see my footsteps in the snow leading to the stairs, and another pair of footsteps trailing behind them, my eyes follow the other path through the snow, once I see it leads to the side.
Squeak… My father and I both turn our heads. CRASH.
The window is slammed open and a figure comes through.
Even in this snow, it’s dressed suit and tie. its eyes deeply dug in its face where you can barely see the tiny black pupils behind the shadows covering the face.
I recognize him as one of the field agents, one of those poster board guys they use to inspire us.
Rather than an inspiring poster, he towers over us, he then look toward us, and grins with one side of his face leaving me disheartened. That was not the grin of someone about to help us. He walks toward us, I don’t even have the energy to make fun of his bald head. It felt the same as making fun of a serial killer’s off-brand knife.
Once he was about five feet away, I back up further away, he walks closer, I walk back, he walks closer, I walk back, he walks closer, until I was backed into a corner.
The slow tap of his shoes is like an echo of my heartbeat, until he stops. Two feet away I can see the stains on his collar, and the yellowing of his teeth. His smile fades.
“Give it to me”.
The bravado voice sends me to the floor.
He repeats slightly louder “Give it to me”.
I stutter out “W-what do you want”.
He slaps his palm to his face. “Imbecile, THE PENNY, GIVE ME THE PENNY”.
I jump on the box I brought from work and toss everything out until I retrieve the penny. I tried to hand it to him, but my hand quivered too much for him to get it. Annoyed, he grabs my arm, popping something, and rips the penny out of my hand.
My father witnessing all this stands up straight to him. “HEY, what are you doing to my son?”. The agent’s eyes slowly fixed on my father.
“What’s that?” he says.
“I said, what are you doing to my son?!”.
“Not that”.
The man says. His devilish grin returns, but something is slightly different.
“Your accent… German?”.
He looks at me
“ Do you even know what our mission is at the MMP?”.
“What are you talking about?” “Our mission…” he continues. “Is to protect the safety of our citizens in this country at any cost”. I finally started to understand what he was saying. He sticks his hand in his coat “We founded this organization after WWii, and you’re part of this company, and you’re affiliated with them?”.
That word, “them”, that’s when I truly knew it. I ran at him, fear for my life is the last thing I have now “NO” I yell. “This isn’t personal, it’s for the well-being of the Country”.
“NO” I yell again, I don’t have to see him pull it out, I know, I know what it is. Even before it was shot, I use the full capacity of my lungs to scream another long continuous “NO!!!”.
Who is the enemy I've asked myself, who is the enemy this organization is fighting?
There are no wars going on, there have been no reports of terrorism, there is only… us.
I look up to see my father smiling at me, he mouths the words “run”.
My thoughts go blank, my ears are shot, scenes go by faster until they all fade away to reveal my father lying on the floor.
The agent leaves. In fetal position lying over my father’s body, repeating the same phrase, over, and over “why?”.