Whisper Wind

Story by Ryan Cheng

| AUTUMN 2019 ISSUE | FICTION

It was a sunny Saturday morning, quite possibly the best Saturday morning in recent times in Blueberry Park, and Charles Phillis planned to make the most of it. He was on the next plane to Illinois to start his freshman year at college, but even though he was to depart at 3:00, Charles didn’t ever let trivial things like that stop him from enjoying a nice warm day in nature. A single wispy cloud drifted overhead as he sat down, gazing at the beautiful scene around him. A tree swayed above him, covering him with blessed shade, and a gentle breeze ruffled his hair. A cloud of tiny leaves from the tree were caught in it and lifted off from the tree. He wondered if they were like him––carried along by his passion, away from normalcy and his tiny little town into an adventure.

Today was a good day for a bombing. Clear skies––well, nearly––and a clear target, with a wind plenty strong headed this way. Q14 cracked his knuckles. He was always nervous before a mission, even after flying countless times. He looked around to the fleet of bomber planes around him, manned by his brothers. Grim faces and hard eyes. Just the way it should be. It was a heavy task today, but an honorable one, and a necessary one.

Abruptly, like a crack of lightning in the blue sky, the sound of the wind filled his ears. The bombers the men were clinging to shook and slid forward, only held back by a thick cord.

“Ready in ten.” The watchman’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker. Q14 gripped the wheel in the pilot seat of his plane with white knuckles. 

“Ready in three,” said the watchman. A war cry rose in the air around him, an undulating scream rising with the wind. Q14 took a deep breath and let his voice go, inaudible in the cacophony of a thousand tongues and the roar of the raging wind.

“READY IN ONE” screamed the watchman, barely audible above the wind. It crept up to a low howl, and the planes lifted off of the ground, straining against their restraints like water on a dam. And all of a sudden, the wind raged forth, roaring like a thousand lions and hitting like a stampede of bison. The anchors that held the planes to their posts snapped, and a thousand bombers descended into the apocalypse.

Charles sighed contentedly and laid back onto the soft grass. He loved nature—it always helped him feel at peace, like he was in tune with the rhythm of the earth. Closing his eyes, he breathed deeply, felt the cool of the earth beneath him, heard the rustling of the tree above him and the leaves in the wind. He yawned slowly, and drifted off into sleep.

The anchors that held the planes to their posts snapped, and a thousand bombers descended into the apocalypse.

Q14’s bomber tore through the air. A lightweight craft, it bucked and shook in the turbulent wind like a wild bronco, shaking him with each jolt. Q14’s eyes constantly darted around, flitting left and right and up and straight. His hands made a thousand infinitesimal corrections on the wheel as the plane narrowly squeezed through gaps between two or three or a million other planes, maneuvering around them like they were rigged to explode. He gritted his teeth as he wrenched the wheel to the side, causing the glider to swerve hard to the right, narrowly missing a piece of debris flying through the air, then pulled it back to straighten the plane and avoid crashing into another bomber. Q14 drew a shaky breath, hands sweating bullets, heart hammering against his chest. Hopefully it would clear up from here. The wind roared. The plane passed through a patch of turbulence, causing it to drop for a second before stabilizing, and the top of Q14’s head banged against the ceiling of the cockpit. Q14 saw stars, barely making out the shape of another plane before shoving the controls forward and down to dodge it. He grimaced as the wing of his plane scraped against the bottom of the other plane, making a screech like a tortured parakeet with a vibration that reverberated throughout the aircraft. 

 “Target below,” finally came the watchman’s report across the radio. Q14 peered down, and sure enough, far below was a titanic, grotesque figure lying on the ground, gaping mouth a target wide open, gargantuan body the size of a mountain, a slumbering giant waiting to be vanquished. For the first time that day, Q14 felt real elation, and a smile slowly spread across his face. He could take the perfect shot from here.

“DIVE!” bellowed the watchman. Q14 shoved the controls forward, and the plane dove. 

For a moment, time slowed down. Everything was quiet and still, plane nearly stopped mid-hurtle, cars on the road crawling along at a snail’s pace, like the world was in slow motion. 

As the earth inched closer and closer, Q14 looked out and saw the green grass and trees, the black-brown dirt, the lone white cloud floating in the blue sky. He saw the barren wasteland of the road, the grotesque half-life of the skyscrapers looming and growing ever larger like a cancer in the distance, the mindless motion of the great machines as they tore holes in the ground and created mountains of dry dirt and gravel. And in a moment of clarity he knew that no one could stop them. No, it. The flood of human individuals was one will, one dominating, unstoppable force. Unceasing, unnatural, unable to be stopped. Not by the armies of the wild, not by the powers of the earth, not even by the humans themselves. Ultimately, the earth was just another fruit for humanity to take for itself.

But at least it wouldn’t go down without a fight.

The bomber was around halfway to the gaping mouth of its human target. It would dive straight in, full of all of nature’s unpleasant surprises. There was no coming back from this mission. Q14 would see it to the end even if it killed him—as it killed him. As the plane neared three quarters of the way to its target, a solitary voice came over the radio, almost a whisper. 

“Remember the oceans. Remember the forests. Remember the mountains. Remember your fallen brothers, and take your vengeance.” Then another voice joined the first, and another. A trickle became a torrent, a tide overwhelming with desperation and fury. Five seconds to impact.

“Remember the oceans. Remember the forests. Remember the mountains. Remember your fallen brothers, and take your vengeance,” whispered Q14. Three seconds to impact.

“Remember the oceans. Remember the forests. Remember the mountains. Remember your fallen brothers, and take your vengeance.

“Remember the oceans. Remember the forests. Remember the mountains. Remember your fallen brothers, and take your vengeance.”

Charles woke up with a bitter taste in his mouth. He wrinkled his nose and spit out a mouthful of tiny leaves. Disgusting. But it had been a good wakeup call! Charles glanced at his watch, promptly stood up, cheerfully thanked the leaves he’d spat on the ground for waking him up in time, and sauntered off with a spring in his step. Truly, a much-needed moment of calm in his fast-paced life.