Short Story: Flight {Part 1}

The night is dark and crazy. “Edison!” I call through the stupid maze of trees and the scent of wilderness. The battery in my flashlight gradually dies. “Edison, get over here!” The fading light in my hand hardly cuts through into the black bushes.

Okay, calm thoughts, thoughts, I think to myself. After all, the only thing that could possible happen is to be devoured by some man-eating bear. Or get so utterly lost that not only can I not find Edison, but I also can’t find any berries and thus I starve. Happy thoughts.

The sound of a big blundering animal resounds through the woods. I jump, pretty certain that a carnivore of a bear is coming to kill me. I mean, anything is possible when it’s dark and you’re afraid. Plenty of twigs crack and there’s this weird, panting/grunting noise. I relax when Edison’s enthusiastic face appears between two trees. Of course, he’s not very happy now. His big blob of black hair is tangled up like a hobo’s and there are cuts on his cheeks, vaguely visible in the faint flashlight beam.

“Where were you!” I scream. “Don’t leave me like that! What the hell were you doing anyway?” I had enough of Edison’s antics (not his real name, but a nickname he calls himself). He was the reason we were in the dead of night, blundering through the rural part of state while being chased by vigilant troopers this moment.

An idiotic grin splits his face. I noticed he had a small leaf plastered to the corner of his lips. “I was just getting us some transportation. “ He made that stupid smile again. I wanted to slap it right off him. How could he be smiling when the only things we had were a few packages of crackers to eat, couple of water bottles filled with stream water (I recoil here) and a hundred bucks, which we can’t even use when all the police are trying to get our behinds in jail?

“Yeah, transportation in the middle of some damned forest. I really see how that’s going to work out,” I respond sarcastically.

“Aw, come on kiddo. You all gotta have some faith. And a bit of me.” He winks. You see what I mean? He completely crazy.

“I’ve had enough of your faith. And it’s your complete fault we’re in this mess in the first place.” He winks. I literally snarl.

I first met him at the Annual Convention for Innovative Ideas, which I don’t recommend, it’s a total fiasco every year. This year’s theme was wind mills. Edison came up with this brilliant idea  - now, you should know me by now that I don’t actually mean that – to make a wind mill big enough to power the entire town. Made out of dimes. I don’t even understand how that is supposed to even function. I mean, aren’t all windmills constructed out of some light-weight material?

Well, Edison didn’t have enough dimes. So he nicked all the coins he could find out of all the ponds and fountains in the area. You know how they usually have pennies and nickels at the bottom, because people threw them in to make a wish or something of the sort? Yeah. And he didn’t stop there.