Aircraft Carrier
Tags: Literally Literary, Fiction, Aircraft Carrier, Desert

Paul spat grit out of his mouth; once, twice. He resisted the urge to wipe his lips with the back of his hand for two reasons. One, he was wearing thick, dirty as fuck, work-man gloves; two, the gloves were even more sandy.

He had just used the wrench in his left hand to tap the hull of this bad boy. Two taps that made satisfying clunks, reverberating through the hull. Well, the hull had then responded by dumping a shit load of sand on him. Ahh, brought up fond memories of the wife.

He jiggled his body to get the sand off, in what he thought was a perfect imitation of a dog shaking off water. It wasn’t. It was more along the lines of: lizard landing in a pot of hot water, trying to get out. Paul stroked his red, grey tinged beard though — satisfied. He thought his dog imitation was pretty nifty; the amount of sand left on his clothing disagreed.

Job assumed done, he turned to watch the mammoth crane — its bright yellow flaring in the sunlight — position the final piece into place. A large, dirty green, translucent arc — probably some kinda plastic — settled onto the ship’s deck, aft of the superstructure. It had a hole in the side — jagged; as if some huge rat had chewed through it. Maybe that was the theme of the movie. It had to be a movie, nothing else made sense. Why else the fuck would you transport a fucking aircraft carrier all the way to the fucking desert if not to feed the popcorn chewing, soda slurping, wide-eyed addiction of movie goers?

Paul started walking towards the shade of tents set beyond the ship. As lead shipwright, he’d been checking the joins that kept the ship together. He still marveled at the logistics that had brought the ship there. Flown out of San Diego to El Valle De La Luna in the Atacama, he’d been one of the first workers on site. He’d seen the ship come in, piece by piece, on ginormous aircraft, on truck-trailers that dared physics. Assembled here, like fucking Lego; wedged into a sand bed and moved around to create whatever effect whoever owned this movie wanted. It seemed to him like a lot of fuss for some unrealistic flick, didn’t they have fuckin’ CGI or whatever now?

The last crane reversed from the aircraft carrier with a series of beeps. Things were coming to a head. Mechanical sweepers stepped in to remove thread, tyre, and foot tracks from around the ship. Klaxons sounded to warn people off the ship’s immediate vicinity. He guessed shooting was starting in earnest. Hmmph, these fuckers don’t dick around, the people need to be entertained, god forbid they open a book or enter a library *gasps. He chuckled at that.

His feet took him in a beeline towards the canteen tent, man as big as he was needs his food, and fluids; especially in this damn heat. However, something else piqued his curiosity just then. The lead foreman was speaking deferentially to someone whom Paul had taken to calling ‘the director’. Every day, and night, whilst they’d put together the aircraft carrier, the woman had sat on that rise, watching proceedings. If anyone knew what all this odd fuss was about, it was her. He wanted to sate his curiosity. His money was on movie but still.

He stowed his hunger for a bit, changing direction to the dune they were standing on. His long legs carried him swiftly towards them, but gusts of breath betrayed his exertion upon cresting the rise. Turban or no, still feels like the devil’s backyard out here, especially since it was almost midday.

He exchanged hellos with them both and posted his question to the director. She responded to his inquiry with one word, “Wait.”

The foreman chuckled. Paul clamped down on his irritation and did as she asked. She brought out a rectangular elongated canvas bag, unzipped it, revealing an elongated rectangular box which she set upon the table. She unclasped the box to reveal a tripod and a camera.

She left the shade of the tent to set it up, pointed at the aircraft carrier. She looked at her watch, looked at the sun and placed her eye on the view-finder. She stayed that way for over ten minutes.

Paul fidgeted in the sun. The foreman twiddled with his handheld.

She waved Paul over and asked him to look through the camera. He planted his eye and did some beholding. The ship was beautiful, brown rust that he’d thought ghastly up close, came alive in the sunlight. Sand, twinkled. The whole aircraft carrier looked like a base of operations during the world leftover after a nuclear war or some other devastation. He found himself thinking he wouldn’t mind a place like that.

“Looks really good,” he said to her, after pulling his face away from the camera.

She just looked up at him, eyes twinkling.

Paul felt awkward, suddenly conscious of his big arms.

“Good luck with your movie,” he blurted.

“Oh, it’s not a movie.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. She wasn’t forthcoming. She started packing up the camera.

“What is it then?” he prodded.

“Oh, I just wanted a picture for a writers’ prompt on Reddit.”

Paul couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.