Full Speed Ahead, Maniac Twins! (Pt.2)

I suppose I should note, at this time, that I am not what you would call “traditionally handsome”. I wasn’t clean-cut, and fit like the officers who had escorted me from the public airport to the military airport (and who ultimately ended up being pilot and co-pilot on the plane I had just boarded), nor was I worn-out and weathered like Jack. I was thin and lean, and had always been a little too tall for practical purposes. My knees had a tendency to knock into desks and drawers and my shirts never seemed to fit very well. In addition, I had never acquired the skill for taming my hair. It stuck out in all directions, and on a windy day like this, tended to aggregate toward the back and slightly off to the side of my head.

So you can see why I was a bit nervous when I cleared my throat and said, “Hello! This is some strange trip, eh?” I firmly believe that it would been a smooth line, had it not been for the fact that right in the middle the pilot cut in with the two engines, and my words were lost in a whirlwind of howling intakes and screaming blades. This was not to be the last time I wasn’t able to successfully engage this beautiful woman in conversation, but I will touch on some of those other times where they are more relevant to the story.

The plane was crowded. There were only the three of us, plus the two officers in the cabin, and there was also a dog who had curled up on the floor and fallen asleep as soon as the plane had taken off. However, the majority of the space was taken up by a big pile of tarped and pinioned packaged machinery. My trained eye could see the outlines of manifolds, metal heat sinks, and tubes that indicated it was some sort of engine, perhaps a generator of some type, beneath the miles of gray military tarping stretched across the bulky surface. I had just spent the better part of six years and more money that I wanted to think about focusing on machines exactly like the one that sat in front of me, and so you’ll understand if I went out of my way to avoid thinking about it too much. Instead, I decided to stare out the window and watch the planet drop away as we took to the skies.

It was all very mysterious and brand new, and I had been caught up in the heat of the moment and not stopped to think very much about all that was happening around me. It was getting late at that point, and as we flew towards the east, the sun sank into the horizon behind us and the sky and clouds towering over the Gulf turned beautiful shades of gold and red. I thought about my apartment, and I thought about the lab in which I was working and also about the classes I was helping with, some lower level stuff. As the sky outside turned from honey to a bloody purple I couldn’t help but let my attention creep slowly away from the window, across the seats and the aisle and over to that blonde sitting across the way.

She was wearing a light gray leather jacket over a dark blue turtleneck, and her hair fell in curls around the neck. She had a book open on her lap, but was looking out the window, admiring the tremendous display of colors as the planet slunk away from the sun. The air conditioning cycled softly and the plane bumped and swayed with the light turbulence. I was very happy at that point because I was doing something new and exciting. I leaned over slightly in my chair and said, “Hello. Beautiful night, isn’t it?” She replied without turning around, “Very much so! We never had nights like this in Michigan.” Her voice was not lyrical or beautiful in any way. I’m not trying to say that she had an unpleasant voice – quite the opposite in fact – but it seemed to me that she talked as if she didn’t think before hand. Her words didn’t seem pre-planned, but spilled out of her with unapologetic honesty. After being surrounded for six years by people who spoke in sentences as carefully calibrated as the machines they worked on, it was very refreshing to speak to someone who spoke at the same rate that they thought.

In an attempt to continue this trend, I immediately said the first things that came into my head. “I hear Michigan is an incredibly awful place. Very cold, I mean.” She turned in her chair and looked at me for the first time. She had green eyes. She laughed. “In the winter it can get pretty nasty. However, I recommend you visit us in the early summer before forming any permanent conclusions.” I smiled and mumbled my agreeance, greatly relieved that she had not been turned off by my hasty response. She spoke again. “Where are you from anyway? You’re not from Texas are you? I can’t stand Texan men. They all think that they are cowboys. Unless of course you are simply living in Texas. Do you study? You seem like an academic type, very rangy. Or are you a career man? I hear Mark is picking up people from both sides of the fence so-to-speak. That’s the way it is with the government. They hire people who can think, and then they hire people who can run things and keep those thinker-people in line and on-topic. I’ve always had the distinct impression that university-types don’t need much guidance when they’re set loose on a project. They’re a little mindless to begin with, so as long as you tell them what you need and keep them well fed, they’ll keep working until they get the job done. What do you think about that? Do you think I’m too harsh on them?” Realizing that this woman enjoyed talking, and that I would be run-over by her in straight conversation, I tried to halt the flow of questions, by asking one of my own. “So are you a career woman or a scientist?” She did not seem bothered by my attempt to evade her questions, but smiled slightly, and turned back around in her chair to study the sky through her frost-encompassed window before replying. “I don’t believe that we should be limited by careers, and I feel very strongly that science is dead.” That was all she said, and I couldn’t think of a good way to respond, so I rested my head against the seat and faced the window, my head full of questions and thoughts.