Turning Back Time

1102 Hours, March 3rd, 2617
Museum of Humanity, Earth
There it was. Alex Vens could nearly cry. There it was, in all its glory. He reached a withered hand up, and touched the aircraft's fuselage. In the climate-controlled environment of the museum, the metal, painted with a mixture of mottled green and brown colors, felt freezing cold. Just like it did on cold New Belgrade mornings he thought to himself. He looked up from the fuselage, up towards the cockpit of the AT-65. There were two lifelike mannequins in the cockpit, below the open canopy. Both were dressed in outfits he remembered all too well. Gun metal gray colored civilian flight helmets with tinted visors locked in the up position, with similarly gray oxygen masks hanging off them, adorned their heads.
They wore sage green flightsuits, with survival vests that looked like they had just gotten pulled out of Aircrew Equipment Issue back at New Belgrade Airfield back when the Gilgamesh Free State still existed. Back when I was still able to go back home to Glabetov, he thought bitterly. Examining the 'pilots', he saw the one in front was looking down, presumably supposed to look like he was going through his checklist, and again saw himself in that same position over a half a century ago, a young student pilot fresh out of the Glabetovan Aerial Training School, sweating bullets at the thought of flying a high-performance trainer, fearing he would let down his instructor, or worse yet, get washed out and return to Glabetov in shame. The mannequin in the back seat, looking outside of the aircraft, reminded him of his old instructor pilot, seemingly carefree, but watching his every move for any flaws to correct.
Vens slowly paced around the aircraft with the aid of his cane, looking over every piece as if he were going through his preflight inspection again. As he halted just behind the left wing, he closed his eyes, and imagined himself back on Gilgamesh Independence Day in 2553, soon after he and several other Glabetovan pilots had become at basically qualified to fly the AT-65 on their road to flying the F/A-440. He still remembered how his hands, slick with sweat, had a white-knuckle grip on the control stick and throttle as he flew flight wingman over New Belgrade for a parade as part of the Glabetovan delegation to it. He could still feel the aircraft's pusher turboprop's vibrations as he constantly looked right to check his distance from the flight leader.
He opened his eyes, and looked up at the aircraft's wing, thinking of the days when how, when doing his checks there, he would look at the tarmac, and look up at the F/A-440s taxiing and rocketing off into the early dawn sky, to patrol or to bomb enemy positions. For a few precious moments, he felt young again, he felt as if he was back on Gilgamesh, waiting for the day he could fly them, waiting for the day he could go back to Glabetov, and say he was now qualified to fly the Glabetovan Air Service's newest fighters. How proud he'd be, how eager his family and friends would be to hear his tales of glory and triumph from Gilgamesh.
But soon enough, that feeling of youth turned to one of bitterness and despair as Vens looked down at himself. He still fit into his old flight jacket that he and his squadronmates had had made by a tailor in New Belgrade, but his hands were withered, his moves uneasy, and despite the effort made by the best doctors he could find, his eyesight was degrading once again. He remembered the words he had said to a member of the Venezian militia when he, the twice-exiled pilot, went to fly for them: All I can do is fly. And now, here he was, with a good pension, but he couldn't fly anymore, no matter what medical technology tried to do. And that saddened him even more than knowing that Glabetov still wasn't safe for him.
Category:Safe Havens
Category:The Weekly