On Hold

Gibbs was soaring. He opened his eyes and his arms and legs plummeted. The weight hit him. It pinned him down, he couldn't move his neck, so he sat in silence gazing at the ceiling in the dim cloudy light. The mould, and cobwebs. The tasteless 30's revival lampshade. He was used to this drama. After fifty years he could set his clock by it. That's if it wasn't set for him. He just wished that he could get some serious sleep first. Impossible. Not without a few jellies and his old buddy Jim Beam. 4:45 AM- He lied there being crushed. It's psychosomatic. That's all. But he was an old man now and it wasn't getting easier. After ten minutes he managed to get onto his brittle feet. They felt as though they were being sucked down thru the floor. He stretched, yawned and winced at the cacophony of cracking bones and grinding ligaments. Next the pain, it shot up from the base of his spine, branched out down to his fingertips, up along his neck, exploding at the back of his head. Every time it happened he felt as if his eyeballs would burst out all over the linoleum. Never fails to wake him up. A 50-megaton migraine concentrated for five minutes, then he could turn the lights on.

At least he wasn't nauseous. He managed to hold down breakfast. Caffeine, nicotine and valium. Oh and lets not forget the calcium tablet. My thank you for 25 years service. Good for the bones, he thought sarcastically, help repair them and make them grow strong again. But the damage was irreversible, the pain familiar, the feeling of helplessness inevitable. He often considered suicide. He wanted to jump out, but the window couldn't open, never; not without dynamite. He often thought of doing it, in his most spiteful of moods. He knew that even the tiniest crack was all that would be needed. It would eventually grow and the floor would de-pressurise. He estimated that his floor, and a portion of above and below would get sucked out and plummet two kilometres down. They deserve it. For allowing me to be cooped up here, left to die;

"Depolarise."

The AT&T logo shimmered and disappeared. Gone. In its place was the universe. A 50x50 centimetre view of the outside world. That was it. And perhaps was more then many people saw. He peered out. There was a purple tinge to the sky. Above giant columns of cotton candy, below a dirty white blanket blocked a view of the ground, its corners tinged with pink. The sun was a dull copper orb concealed in a sooty haze. His throat constricted, his eyes welled up. Windows he thought; windows to nowhere.

****

If time had ran in tandem with imagination then his was to be the golden age. A new millennium. New hope, new possibilities. He once believed in the future he was helping to build, and it's architect, McCoy. General McCoy led the White House coup that followed the Mayday Crash, which resulted from, among other things, the European’s policy of fossilising fossil fuels. It toppled world oil markets, and the AU, having control of 75% of it, lost out bitterly. As a nation it became disillusioned at the rest of the world; the hostility remains. Gibbs lived through it all, and was the only child of staunch McCoy supporters. Gibbs' family were of military stock, and believed McCoy to be a real-life Superman, standing for Truth, Justice, and The American Way.