Neil's shirt stuck to his back almost as soon as he and his brother sat on the front porch to watch the crew take down the powerlines. The lines hadn't been used for almost a year, but the city hadn't made it a priority to remove them until then.
In school they'd watched an old movie about a man who had to emergency land a plane. It was supposed to be a true story, but in it the pilot had flown through a cloud. After the film the teacher showed them real videos of pilots flying through them, and then showed them the first incident of the changing clouds.
"They're gonna hit a building. They're gonna crash," a lady screamed. The plane careened near buildings and landed in a field outside of the town. The video cut to a close up of the man's wings and they were dented, damaged, and bent up.
"I wasn't aiming to do a scud run," he said. "I had to. I swear I had to. Look at the plane."
That summer Neil and his brother woke up early almost every day. They liked to go outside and watch the sky. They saw the planes fly under the clouds, and other times watched the clouds sink towards the Earth.
One morning Neil's brother had woken up much earlier than Neil. Neil was asleep when his brother burst into his room shouting, "A cloud. There's a cloud falling and it looks like it's gonna land in the big field."
Neil threw some shorts and a hoodie on and the two of them ran out the door. They cut through the neighbor's yards and ran as fast as they could. Near the edge of the field was a small covered pavilion with two old wooden picnic tables. They sprinted past it and kept their heads up in the sky looking for the descending cloud. It was gone, but as they looked around they noticed fog all around them.
Neil scooped his hand through the fog. He watched as the fog curled around in his hand. He formed it into a ball and raised it in front of his face. He blew out and the fog swirled all around him. His brother laughed and grabbed some up as well. They made them into balls and pushed them at each other. Instead of spreading apart the balls joined into one another. Neil pushed it easily, but his younger brother had to strain to get it to move.
"I've got an idea," Neil said as he pushed down a little on the ball of fog and made a curved edge on it, until it resembled a seat. Then he picked up his brother and placed him in the makeshift saddle. His brother sat atop the fog with a big smirk on his face. Neil gave his brother a small shove and watched as the fog and his brother floated through the air.
His little brother hopped off and grabbed some fog. He clumped it together and began to make it into a rectangle. Once it was big enough he pushed it to about knee height and stepped on it.
"Look Neil, I'm standing," he said with a laugh.
Neil tried to put his body weight on it, but his foot just broke through.
As his brother stood there he made small bounces to test the weight. The two brothers locked eyes, and silently began running around scooping up even more fog.
A short time later they had 15 rectangles. Neil placed the first one about three feet off the ground. He stacked them all on top of each other and they became slightly locked together. He could move them around as one unit, but one could be removed off the top or bottom easily as well.
Neil instructed his brother as they began to make a makeshift pair of fog steps into the sky. Before long he was watching his brother climb higher than the pavilion.
He called out, "Only go as high as the light."
His brother reached the light. It was at least 15 feet in the air. Neil started to tell his brother to come down, when he saw him start to panic.
"Neil," he shouted. "The fog. It's disappeared down there."
He'd been looking up the whole time and hadn't noticed the first tier of stairs was completely gone. The atmosphere had shifted, and the fog was clearing.
"What do I do?"
Neil looked around frantically. He could feel the absurdity as he looked for anything to help. A pole that long, a jet pack, a plane flying low.
"Look," Neil said, and pointed a little higher.
There was a cloud drifting above his little brother.
"Use the fog to get to the cloud."
His brother used the same technique he'd been doing, and clambered his way a little higher onto the cloud. At first, he could only see a faint outline of his little brother, but then he popped his head over the side and waved.
"It feels like the softest pillow in the world," his brother said with a smile in his voice that betrayed the nerves they both had a moment ago.
"Most clouds sink," Neil shouted. "They must be a little different than the fog. Can you try jumping on the cloud?"
He held his breath as he watched him start bouncing on the cloud. There was always the possibility that he would break through, and his brother would careen towards the ground.
The cloud slowly started to lower back down. Both of them whooped and hollered. As it got closer to the pavilion Neil pulled out one of the picnic tables and scrambled up to the top. As the cloud floated just above the pavilion he dove onto it next to his brother. He sank down into the cloud, but it held his weight. The two laughed uncontrollably as the cloud sank the rest of the way to the ground.
Topic: Second Draft- Scud Run (Read 1782 times)