Aerospace Engineer v. Air Traffic Controller

The Aerospace Engineer sits beneath the oak and takes new notes, updates old notes, redraws Reliability Block Diagrams, then stops taking notes and stares at the far stand behind the timber fence. He stares for a long time. He feels he's done taking notes.

The Air Traffic Controller steps from a fog that's blown in from the west. He spits tobacco juice into an empty plastic soda bottle. Hell of a fog, he says. The Aerospace Engineer has a difficult time smiling, let alone looking the Air Traffic Controller in the eye, but does both.

Hell of a fog, repeats the Air Traffic Controller. He's an affable, pear-shaped man with a dull yellow smile. He speaks.

This one time my partner called in sick and so I worked alone at the radar console at the airport when a fog blew in from the west. I fell asleep at some point during the night, during a time of quiet between flights, in the early morning when there aren't many aircraft taking off or landing. And then I woke and heard the sound of sirens and crashes and another crash and on my radar screen there was all sorts of dots flying into each other and after each one I heard the sound of a crash and the radio was just blaring with yelling and screaming and crying and everything and I flew into a panic. And then I wake up again, and I realize that was all a nightmare. But the radio's quiet. And I see dots but just a few and they're apart and I just have no idea how long I've been asleep for. And then I think that maybe this is the real nightmare, and an even worse nightmare because it's a nightmare that keeps me asleep while a real worse nightmare - a true nightmare - is happening in the waking world, behind all that fog, above my sleep. And I try and try to wake myself up, do everything to wake up, but I just can't. But I can't stop trying because who knows, right? And it was the most harrowing time of my life up until past dawn when the fog burned off that I realized that I was awake and I didn't cause no accident for anyone.

The Air Traffic Controller spits more juice into the soda bottle. The end, he says. He smiles.

Wordlessly, they take their place on the field, fifteen paces apart.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.