The prompt
*hyperfiction* hits the road in untethering
Scene One, Act One: The Helicopter Pilot and his Sirens
James was my best friend during the summer before Exeter, and more critically, after I was booted. He is twenty years older than I am. He became my running buddy that first summer. He rented a boathouse apartment from my now-single mom and promptly added a ski boat to facilitate his lifestyle and the head-over-heels infatuation of my favorite sister. We had the same motivation.
That summer, we would ski at sunrise. Play tennis mid-afternoon and have lunch. On a perfect day, we’d do a sunset run skiing on the lake of glass. This was before the masses invaded Austin. This was 1976. The Boston hit “More Than a Feeling” was causing me to sing and be sad at the same time. I was leaving my entire life in Austin behind to escape my devil father. It didn’t work. The emotional load corrupted my prep school opportunity. I could not get my brain to focus enough to pass Spanish. These days, I’m like a scholar on Latin American poetry and novels. Go figure.
Singing and skiing with my new big brother, adopted best friend, and boat owner. My family had the keys to the boat dock to the tennis club. It was a friendship we both needed. Me alone in a huge empty house on the lake. Him trying to woo a hippie sister of mine and running up against his Vietnam trauma. He flew Red Cross helicopters. Gore and pain beyond human comprehension. Not like in the movies. Like people bleeding out in your arms. Nothing you can do.
James flew those birds in, picked up the wounded and dying, under heavy fire, and air-lifted them to the mash unit. (James loved MASH, the TV series and movie.)
James is still deeply wounded and isolated. All the time I’ve known him, I’ve tried to float ideas we could do together. Today, James had an idea. He’s into UFOs. We talked for a bit about Jillian Andersen. Then he went on to unfurl a story based on the Portuguese actress and director of the movie Gloria. And if I can write it, the working title, given by James as a question to me.
“What do you think about humans?”
That’s it. That’s the entire idea.
He also mentioned an organization I hadn’t heard of in years, MUFON. I’m going to dig into that organization when I get a chance. James is an alien enthusiast.
“Oh, they’re out there. There are organizations in the US working to intercept alien technology and make use of any discoveries. The military is the focus, obviously.
I asked him about some movies as references. “Have you seen Arrival, with Amy Adams?”
“No.”
“What about the 3rd Body Problem?”
“No, listen! Gloria is also the actress’s name.”
“Yeah, the challenge these days is getting an actor attached to a script. It means they’ve read it, and if it gets the greenlight, they will play the starring role.”
“She would be perfect. You could have her just walk around naked all the time; it would be a hit.”
We both laugh and harass the waiter, who continues to miss cues about empty coffee cups.
“The aliens communicate telepathically.”
“So, no dialogue?”
“That would never work. No, it’s the girl who begins to intercept their comms.”
“Ah, I see. So she’s the gateway to communicate with the aliens.”
“Exactly.”
“Can we see them? Do we know what they look like or what they’re after?”
“That’s for you, my creative friend.”
“Okay, I get it.” I paused a minute before delivering the question.
“Do you want to get into the movie business, James?”
“Oh Hell No!”
“Okay, so just an idea?”
“Yeah. We could get the script to her within three days.”
“How’s that?”
“We’d probably reach out to the director first.”
Okay, James has unlimited wealth. His father or grandfather started one of the biggest commercial paint companies in the world. You’ve heard of it. If James wanted to fund a pilot…
Okay, but the idea of reconnecting with James was to make contact with that period in both our lives. To commune a moment about my sister. And see what his life has been about over the last fifty years. He’s doing an almond farm and photovoltaic ceramic research. He has no close family and lives in the same house from our last contact about 30 years ago. A swimming pool in the courtyard that he never uses, but pays the same woman and her son to clean and maintain his world.
He never let me see the inside of the house, back then. We stood around the pristine pool and talked.
“Wanna jump in?”
“I don’t swim anymore.”
“Still got a ski boat?” Ah, the real motivation 30 years ago.
I asked him the same question today.
“No, I haven’t skied since Marilyn.”
“Marilyn?”
“She’s in Utah, I think. Married. Two kids, about your age.”
“Was she the great love of your life?”
“An unhealthy obsession,” he replied, giggling like a child to himself.
We both knew who the great love of his life and my life was. Our trauma bond.
At this moment, I’m clickity cliking from my powered perch at Whole Foods this morning, riding the storm out. Rain is predicted all day and will likely ruin my Friday Night Tennis gathering tonight from 7 – 9, but you can never know about Texas weather.
Prompt: “Mufon, Gloria, Portugal, Area 51, conspiracy theories about aliens, alien technology, aliens among us” go!
BRB – AI and I are going to blow my friend’s mind.
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The podcast of aspiration: Untethering Deep Dive with Dick and Jane.
The first FIVE chapters explained and contextualized.
