The Space To Run

by ~Ilterendi

The Space to Run

1.

It was one o'clock in the morning.  The glowing numbers stared at him resolutely, forcing him to move.  The air was chill as he stood by the large window.  Outside a cobalt sky showed the stars like a city of light, twinkling in their slow treks around the horizon.

He crossed the large bedroom to the reflective glass door, which slid open soundlessly. His feet were cold on the smooth, stone floor.  The environmental control glowed a dim green on the wall. 56 degrees Fahrenheit.  A good number, but Anchal would complain in her not-unfriendly way the next morning.  She never liked it to get below 60, and even that was cold to her.  Understandably, as they lived in a desert, and her ancestors from the warm climes of India. He moved through the door, naked, a dark blue silhouette in the faint moonlight. Near the bathroom door he searched briefly for something to wear in the laundry basket, and found a light pair of pants. Even the soft rustling of the cloth on his skin intruded on the complete silence of the house.  For a moment he wondered if he were in a dream, but it felt too real.

He sat down at the large oak desk in what he liked to call his study. The smell of books and tobacco and ancient Avon bottles laced cool air.  He took a small stone box from a drawer and slid the charcoal gray lid open. Inside sat a few small vials of different stimulants.  He rarely used them anymore, but every so often they were irresistible. He took the butane lighter from the box and tapped a few milligrams into a small stone pipe.  The flame hissed and shone red.  The white powder turned to the faintest clear liquid on the stone and vaporized.  He felt his lungs warm, holding his breath for a few seconds and setting the lighter down.  When he breathed out the world was happier.  More vibrant.  The clock next to his desk showed 1:15 on its mother of pearl face as he stood and stretched his long arms.

It was late.  Or early. He had always liked the night.  Its dark blue stare, its silence.  As he walked to the window, he wondered what nocturnal animals thought about the day, bright and full of noise.  In the distance he saw the jagged mountains set against the tangle of stars.  Massive windmills stood in the distance, leading up to the edge of a cliff. It couldn't be more than 40 miles out there, he thought.  Yet he had rarely seen the spectacular views from the cliff-edge in person.  One could see the mountains for miles, the sky crisp and clear.  Tonight the Milky Way would look very bright.

He sat down at the desk again.  Opening the small drawer, he saw for a brief moment a face he hadn't looked at in years.  She stared back at him, serious yet soft.  He placed the stone box back in its square of dust and closed the drawer.

2.

At some point he opened his eyes, and focused on the stripe of sky above him.  At first he thought he was in bed, but his back was stiff and cold, and he knew the floor of the study lay beneath him.  He sat up slowly and saw the clock; 2:12 the glowing hands pointed.  Next to him lay a small screen, playing some kind of soft electric music.  He remembered that he had been sitting there, looking at the stars.  He stood, light-headed.

For moment he hesitated, but put one foot in front of the other.  He walked down the stairs to the door of the garage.  It opened slowly, as if sleepy.  Inside sat his car, silvery in the starlight from the window above.  He took the keys from next to the  door and walked in, closing it behind him.

"What am I doing?" he said aloud, but kept walking.

The Silver Bullet.  He and his friends had called it that.  It wasn't a bad name.  The silver organic curves made one think of a corkscrew, or the rifling of a barrel.

The hydraulics moved with barely a sound and he climbed into the driver's seat, closing the hatch-like door.  The garage door went up with a tap on a small remote control and then he was pulling out, the little car so quiet in the quieter night.  The outside spotlight flicked on at the movement, and he cursed briefly for not turning them off beforehand, but it was too late now.  He pressed another button and they switched off as he sped down the long brick driveway to the wide street.

Lights shot past him like glowing embers in a hurricane.  It was only after 5 minutes that he wondered how fast he was going, and saw that it was 173 miles per hour.  This was pretty insane.  The roads in this part of the country were very straight for miles, but what he was doing was dangerous.  He wondered if he was still high.  Then he saw the flat, gray box sitting beside him and knew.  He slowed the cruising autopilot to 135 and took the pipe out of the box.  After just five more minutes he was well over halfway to the cliff.  Suddenly he saw lights behind him, red and blue and flashing.  Shit.

The cop was easily gaining on him, so he bumped the cruise up to 170.  After about 1 minute, he noticed that he had an enormous smile on his face.  The world was a complete blur around him, the lights in the distance barely registering.  He had already hit the switch to hide the car's license signal.

"Am I insane?" he wondered aloud.

"Voice command not understood," the car responded. He chuckled.

He looked down at the red glow from the button under the dash.  This was something he had always dreamed of doing.  The cliff edge was coming up fast.  The cop was still behind, lights flashing furiously.  Suddenly he focused on the ground – it was disappearing so fast, for a moment he felt sheer animal panic jolt through him like an electric current. Then he punched the red button.  Wings extended from the sides of the car with a metallic ring.  The window behind him darkened and an explosion rocked the cabin.  The windscreen darkened as well, and suddenly the black night sky was the whole of the view.  He looked in the rear-view mirror.

His pursuer was directly below him, on the ground, already a thousand feet away.

3.

The car spun slowly as it made its way through the clear July night.  The stars got brighter and brighter, until it seemed as if the sky was covered in them.  The little scramjet was close to the end of its fuel supply and soon the second stage kicked in, slowing the silver vehicle.  He wasn't sure whose idea it had been to put small, extremely fast jet engines into a car, but he felt sure that it was genius.   Looking out the side of the thick glass of the windscreen, he could see the many lights of the cities and towns  down below, and felt a wave of deja vu and a sense of vertigo.  The seat was soft and he closed his eyes...but was soon jolted awake by the second stage engine going into cruise mode.

"The ship must have leveled off captain." he said to himself. "We're almost there."  This car was quite a new thing, and the cruising engine only burned for 60 seconds.  The ship was slowly banking so as to remain in the same basic region.  It had the affect of making him feel like he was spinning around in a vortex above the dark clouds below and the lighted towns.

He raised the seat and looked out the side of the long window.  The darkness below hid almost everything but a few thin clouds and the outlines of mountains and the lights of civilization.  He thought is so strange that a human, a mere animal, should be sitting so far above its own world.  Ahead he could see the curve of the blue Earth.

The illuminated crescent was moving fast towards him;  it was morning running across the surface of the planet, bringing light. He couldn't help thinking that he was running also.  Not from the police or from his wife, not even from his past.  Those things were all temporary, as was life.  No, the running he was doing was indeed just for his own exercise.  Just because he could.

Through the sloped window he could see the blue earth, curved and radiant, the light bouncing from the ship's faintly glowing skin. He looked at his watch but it was difficult to make out the time. The engine was a low purr in its cruising mode, the soundproofed cockpit providing a weird stillness.  It would soon burn out.

"I should have been a superhero, instead I'm flying around in an insanely complex piece of machinery getting fucked up."

Up here things felt lighter.  The night seemed so long ago. Suddenly it seemed more still than it had the moment before.  The slight vibration in the seat of the cockpit ceased.  The nose of the car began to drop, a horizon briefly floated up the windshield, then all he could see was darkness and a web of city lights far below.

4.

Why was it called a cockpit?  The question stupified him for a few moments, until he remembered his car was falling towards earth at close to 40 miles per hour now.  The lights in the cabin had gone out, with only the emergency running lights showing the dim chamber. This could not be right. Where was the owners manual?  He fumbled with a storage compartment under the dashboard.  Nothing.  The descent felt like going down a rollercoaster, but it did not slow. He found himself now, not crazy with panic, but instead a sadness swept over him like a slow, cold wave.  This life, his life, the one that he had enjoyed for so many years, and also loathed in many long nights, was probably ending.  

He thought of all the things he still hadn't done, and felt stabs of regret like hot knives.  He was angry at himself for getting into this stupid car and pushing that stupid button.  What the fuck was wrong with him?  He clenched a fist and yelled.  Then he looked up at the lights below.  He couldn't help feeling a bit of elation at the beauty of the landscape.

He had lived a good life.  Smart with his money, at 48 he now had the ability to afford just about anything he wanted.  His wife was beautiful and kind, an easy person to live with.  There wasn't much more he could want, which at times made him happier than ever, yet sometimes filled him with a desire so sharp and pointless that it hurt.  But that was all over with now.  Within 15 minutes he would no longer exist.  Death had never held much fear for him, a simple end to consciousness. Now that it loomed closer he was filled with an emotion closer to joy and awe.  But that could just be the drugs talking.

"If I'm going to die, I'm going to be high."  He was talking to a bottle of anti-depressants.

He felt a warm current running through his body as dopamine flooded his brain, endorphins pulsing through him.  He tried to think of everything good that had happened in his life.  The first time he got a job, the first time he'd had sex, many other times he'd had sex, being high, parties he'd thrown.  It had been a good time.  This was how it was supposed to end, rushing through space, without a care.  Then the lights came on. He covered his face instinctively with his hand as the little scramjet smashed the car down into the horizon and he felt as though he were going to be pushed straight through the back of his chair as he was thrown into it.  The instruments glowed green on the darkened panel as the autopilot righted the vessel and began talking to him in a soothing female voice:

"Descending at 902.6 feet per second.  At the current speed you will be landing in approximately 4 minutes."

He sat up, almost afraid to move, but righted himself in the chair.  "Well thank the fucking scientists!"

"Command not understood, please repeat."

He laughed then, almost a sob.  This life, his life, might not be over.

5.

The car landed in a field that he had designated as the emergency landing place. He assumed such anyway; in his current state he could not remember doing it.  Then again it was becoming hard to remember when he had left the side of the cliff. The eastern sky was just beginning to glow.  He looked at the digital readout on the cockpit's dashboard: 5:04 AM.  For a moment he sat, dumbfounded.  Then he cried, sobs shaking him for minutes before he opened the door and fell out into the tall grass.  He let the glorious coolness pour into him as he sat there, looking into the distant horizon, the mountains a dark shadow against a cobalt sky.

He let the autopilot drive him home.  At some point he realized that the police would probably find him and charge him with eluding a police officer or some other perfectly plausible crime, but he was too tired to care.  When he walked up the brick stairway to the door on the high balcony, Anchal stood there waiting for him.  The expression on her face was one of half-anger, half-confusion.  He walked to her, wrapping her in a hug that was closer to a collapse.  She sighed.

"What were you doing? There's a call from the police."

"I'll tell you about it later.  Its been one hell of a morning."

She frowned.

"You'll never get away."

He stopped in his long journey to the bed.

"Away? From what?"

"Yourself, you idiot." But there was a hint of a smile in her eyes, he thought.

He started to wonder if he might end up wishing he had died tragically in a stupid rocket crash.  He smiled as he walked to bed.

Epilogue

For his crimes of reckless self-endangerment and evading an officer of the law, Mr. Michael Johnston was ordered to pay a fine of $5,700 and perform 96 hours of community service.  He never told them that he thought it was worth it.