Pennsylvania Kite Weather

The crew of the Recovery Routers gathered outside the locked door of the seventh and last available spaceship bay aboard their orbiting station.

Elam, a thirty-year-old maintenance man and makeshift member of the salvaging team, stared at the seam of the two heavy trapezoid doors set in their hexagon frame. Elevator-like cherry-red lights dimmed above one by one while the AI intercom methodically described what was causing all the whirring and clanging on the other side.

“Floor doors secure,” its crisp, synthetic butler voice relayed.

“Hey!” Seta screeched at the oncoming car that had just coasted out of the campus parking garage, and her instinct was to try flying over it. With an angry buzz of four stubby, oval-shaped wings, Seta hefted herself into a hover, just enough for the beegirl to come plunking down on her knees on the hood of the dark green sedan as it squealed to a standstill.

The sun had set outside of the corner café, and I knew I was fucked.

With the rate Austen was reading through his poems, there wouldn’t be any daylight to walk home. To the dozen or so other young adults in here with us, he read with no rush whatsoever. This particular poem was an extended metaphor about how the smoke of apartment fires choked the city like the host of other community issues. My friend was quite the subtle activist. I had to commend him for making his writing amount to more public visibility than my work ever could.

I can’t see.

I clung to the porch railing, smoothing my palms over the weathered texture of old paint. The autumn breeze sent a bunch of leaves scratching across the driveway, and a windchime rang about from the next-door neighbor’s yard.