FLY!!!!!!!

Yes, since my CLP has finally ended, and I have time to scribble nonsense once more, I finally have the time to write this month’s Writing Project.
I must admit, this story wasn’t my original idea. The original idea was about the dramatic adventures and epic romance between two houseflies in a mamak. But I got lazy to research houseflies.
Therefore, you get this instead. It’s a bit lengthy, but I enjoyed working on it. And if you’ve read the previous story as well, NO, I do not have a fetish for angels. They just seem to fit so nicely into my stories!

MISTER HUMPHRY HERBERT’S WHIMSICAL LEVITATION DEVICE #27

Now a lot of folks, they say that history is written by the victors.

And ya gotta’ admit, that’s certainly true. Ain’t no room in history for the also-rans, the runner-ups, the second placers. Nobody gonna remember the second man on the moon or the man who almost discovered penicillin. If ya don’t achieve it, ya might as well not even try. History sure ain’t going to remember ya.

Which is a damn shame, sometimes. Since ya always end up forgetting some champion fellas.

Take the airplane, for example. Ask any kid in school nowadays who invented it, and they’d look at ya as if ya was stupid. “Aint’cha got no education, mister?” those snot-nosed little punks would say. “That’ll be them Wright Brothers. Flew the first plane in Kitty Hawk. Everyone knows that.”

And they’d be right. And a shame too. Because nobody ever remembers Sir Humphry Herbert. Or his Whimsical Levitation Device. And if ya ask me, I think it’s a crying shame.

I had the pleasure of knowin’ old Herbert, when he still stayed here in Silver Flats, Missouri, from ’49 to ’51. Or was it ’52? I can’t remember. My memory’s going bad in me old age. Used to do the gardening for him and his wife, I did. Prune their begonias, mow their lawn, that sorta stuff. Ain’t much else a boy my age could do in Silver Flats at the time. We weren’t the richest little town.

Everyone liked old Herbert. Ya had to. He was a giant of a man, almost six feet, but ya couldn’t be scared of him, what with his big ol’grin and merry eyes, and all the jokes he was makin’. His hair was white, and he wore a monocle, which he hung on a string attached to his pinstriped suit. Old Herbert always wore pinstriped suits, no matter the season, no matter the weather. Never seen without it, he was. Folks even used to reckon he went swimming in them pinstripe suits. Which was fine though, because it suited the old guv. Made him look distinguished, especially since he always matched it with a tie and shiny shoes.

And he was the most generous guv I’ve ever met in my life. Old Herbert was one of them rich kind-hearted men, one of them phil-somethings, always giving to one charity or other. He was passionate about anything: war widows, orphans, old folks, animals, tuberculosis victims; anyone he deemed to be less fortunate, I tell ya, he would help them out. Old Herbert probably got swindled many times over his life, but the guy didn’t care: as long as he felt he was doing his part, the guv was happy as a jaybird.

And Lordy, how he loved his wife, Layala. She was black, she was, from head to toe, one of them Africans. Her hair was in dreadlocks, and she always wore bright dresses with flowery patterns on them. People said she met old Herbert when he went diamond mining in Africa in his youth. Said she was the princess of some savage heathen tribe. A warrior princess, who saved Herbert from danger one day, and he took her home and married her. What the danger was, ain’t no one certain. Some say it was a pride of lions. Some say he once almost drowned in a river full of crocodiles. Others say it was the dark curse of a voodoo priest angry with the white man for trespassin’ into his territory. Whatever it was, though, it don’t matter.

Some ignorant mothers used Layala to scare their kids. “Ya better eat ya vegetables,” they’d say. “Or Layala will come and get ya in the night, when ya can’t see her, and she’ll mash ya up to make stew for her lions.” But lucky, kids in those days had more sense, and never believed those lies. After all, who could be scared of Layala? She was the nicest, sweetest lady to have ever lived in Silver Flats, always handin’ out candy and singin’ those folk songs of hers which the children loved dancin’ to. Everyone adored her. Especially old Herbert. She may have been the princess of her tribe in Africa, but here in Missouri, well, she was the queen of his heart, ain’t no doubt about that.

I worked as gardener to those two for two years. Old Herbert was rich from his diamond mines, and had a huge mansion with a beautiful garden filled with exotic plants. It was a chore to work there, I ain’t denying it, backbreakin’ labor, but Herbert was good to me, and paid me well. It was to this very day, the best job I have ever had.

Things changed, however, the day Layala died.

It rained that day, and the whole town came to her funeral. Everyone showed up, from the children to the seniors down at the retirement home. Banks and shops closed up for the day, the town flag was flown at half mast, and even old Ma Clapham, who never liked Herbert or his wife, showed up at the ceremony in black to pay her respects.

Old Herbert was broken like crazy after the affair, and everyone wondered how he would deal with this loss. That woman had been everythin’ to him, the very centre of his life. Some wondered if he would build some kind of monument to her: he always was quite an artist. Some of the guv’s art still hangin’ in the British Museum today, after all. People wondered if he would die of grief, or go mad from his sorrow. Some wondered if he would remarry, or even move back to Africa.

Ain’t nobody thought he would start buildin’ flying machines.

I remember how it was, on that fateful Sunday, one week after the funeral. I was cuttin’ the grass down by old Herbert’s lily pond, when the guv himself calls me to his study. “Teddy! Teddy!” the man says. “Come quick, kid! I need you to see this! It will blow ya mind!”

So I goes to his study, where he poured me a cup of cocoa and shows me the plans he had for somethin’ he called his Levitation Device. It was all very technical: I ain’t understanding half of his sketches. But he explained that what he was plannin’, well, it would change the world.

“It’s a machine that flies!” old Herbert was beamin’ from ear to ear. “Can ya imagine it? It’s the future of travel! We can be like the birds, flyin’ wherever we please! It’ll put the steam trains and the ships outta business!”

“Yeah,” I decided to humour the old guv. “We can go anywhere we likes! Ya could fly back to Africa every day, and be back here in time fer’ tea! We could fly to the Orient, and buy silks, and then stop by the Prison Colonies, to visit me old dad, and see the Pyramids, and then stop by the President’s house to shake his hand!”

“Why stop there, Teddy?” old Herbert’s eyes were shining. “We could even fly on up to Heaven, past all them clouds, and meet all them angels!”

At the time I thought nothing of the old man’s plans. Thought they were the old man’s way of copin’ with his pain and all. Either that or age was catchin’ up with the guv, and he was getting’ all senile.

Sadly, once old Herbert got an idea, he ran with it all the way.

Problem was, he tended to run in the wrong direction.

And often off a cliff on the way.

Everyday, he would drive down to the town library, where he’d do his researchin’. He’d take his Bentley. The silver one. It was his favorite, the very first car he ever bought, before he’d gone to Africa and struck it big.

And when he’d go back, he’d start buildin’ his Levitation Devices. And Lordy, what devices they were. I ain’t remembered them all, but all of them were twenty kinds of crazy. Old Herbert left no stone unturned when it came to get to the sky, from flying bicycles to hang-glider suits.

I remember Levitation Device #1. Old Herbert had somehow collected hundreds of birds, and tied them to a boat of his. How he got them I had no idea: the guv did have a crazy way of doin’ things. His idea was that when they all beat their wings at the same time, they’d all carry him to the sky, like the stork carryin’ a baby and so on.

Herbert, however, did not realize how difficult it was to get a bunch of birds to do anything together, and his plan went belly-up pretty spectacular. Them birds got really noisy, the bigger ones started eatin’ the smaller ones, and many of them started to damage the plants in his garden. It made my heart ache, it did, to see the hydrangeas, which I spent weeks tending, bein’ torn apart by some angry jungle fowls. And all of them started poopin’ pretty bad: by the end of the whole evening, old Herbert was covered in so many droppings, he looked like those Abominable Snowmen those Oriental legends talk about.

This failure didn’t dishearten the old guv however, and he began working on his next plan.

Levitation Device #2 went even worse than the first.

Old Herbert had somehow found some book of old myths from the library. Some Greek guv called Icarus or somethin’, had apparently woven together some wings outta feathers, and him and his dad had flown across the sea or somethin’.

What with all the feathers left behind from the previous try, well, makin’ the wings was easy like pie. Old Herbert made some big ol’ wings, seven feet long, and strapped them to his back, lookin’ like some angel. It was actually kinda inspirin’.

I asked old Herbert, however, what happened to that Icarus guv.

“Ain’t went too well, I’m sad to say,” Herbert answered. “Guv stuck his feathers together with wax, and flew too close to the sun. The wax melted, and the poor chappie fell to his death.”

“Ain’t ya worried it will happen to ya?” I asked.

“Oh, don’t worry,” he reassured me. “I learned from the story. I ain’t using wax.”

“Then what are ya usin’?”

“Used chewin’ gum.”

It was really lucky I encouraged him to try flyin’ in McCullogh’s field, with all them haystacks, or who knows what tragedy woulda happened.

Then there was Levitation Device #26. Old Herbert had read from a science book that hot air rises, and had gotten inspired from that.

Now, let me tell ya, there are three kinds of people in this world. Imagine ya’re sitting under a tree one day, and an apple falls on ya head.

The first kind of people go on out to discover gravity and all kinds of sciency stuff: big discoveries that change the world. The second kind of people go to discover apple-proof crash helmets: small, but safe and practical.

The third kind of fellas go out to invent apple-powered doomsday machines, or apple-
pickin’ automatons that eventually go plum crazy and go out killin’ people.

Sadly, Herbert was that third kind of fella, and he brought me to his garden one day to show me his latest device. It was a large platform, made of wood, with a bonfire burnin’ below it. On top of it, was what looked like a chair with a sail attached.
The plan was simplicity, he said. The hot air from the fire will rise, takin’ the chair (which he would be sittin’ in) up into the sky. Once he got airborne high enough, he would hopefully catch a wind-current, which he could travel in all over the place.

I asked how he would change direction in mid-air.

“That’s the genius of the plan!” he exclaimed. He pointed out some strange machine-things at the front of the chair. They were levers, he said, with boots attached to them. If he needed to move in any direction, he would pull the lever and the boot would kick the chair in the required direction. Them sails would do the rest.

Ya had to end it to old Herbert. While most of what he thought was nonsense, it was logically consistent nonsense.

Sadly, like the others, this plan also backfired terribly, not only almost injurin’ Herbert pretty bad, but almost causin’ a bush-fire that almost burnt down the whole of Silver Flats.

People got pretty mad at him after that, and old Herbert laid low for a while. He retreated into his mansion, and no-one saw him for weeks.

I was gettin’ worried about it for a while. Who knows how he took the news of this latest failure. As optimistic as anyone could be, fall too many times, and there was a point ya wouldn’t be able to get up again. I tried to visit him, but he never answered his doorbell, or even looked out of the window at me, though I knew he was there.

Months passed, and for a while I thought he had given up on his flying dreams.

Until he showed up at my door one day, and told me to come follow me.

Old Herbert led me down to his garden, and showed me somethin’ I never quite expected.

The biggest cannon I had ever seen in my life!

I recognized it: “That’s Old Victoria!” The cannon outside the grounds of the Missouri War Museum. Survivor of the great wars. “What is that doin’ here?”

“It’s Levitation Device #27.”

“Ya bought it?? It must have cost a fortune!”

“Sold my Bentley.”

“But ya loved that car!”

“Loved my wife even more. Sold the house too. Developers coming by tomorrow to tear it down. Think they’re buildin’ a factory over it.”

I was pretty stunned. Never was expectin’ something like this to happen.

“I did some modifications to it.” Herbert said. “Look in the barrel.”

Inside the cannon was a hollow vessel, big enough for one person. Probably where old Herbert would be sitting in when he flew. Several items were also placed within. Tuna sandwiches. And umbrella. A notebook and two fantasy novels. A change of clothes. An Oriental paper fan. And oddest of all, a hat with a gold-painted gramophone record attached to it.

“What’s that?” I asked him.

“Well, when I get to heaven, all of them angels going to be flying around with them shiny gold haloes all round them heads. And won’t I look like a damn fool if I get there without one? Gotta make a good impression when I get there. Don’t want to embarrass Layala, ya know?”

“Ya serious about this,” I spoke softly. “Ya really want to be shot out of this cannon? It might kill ya!”

“We gotta take chances after all. What have I got to lose, anyway? I’ve lived a full life, and I’ve been happy with what I got. But it don’t mean nothing without my lady. And if this gets me to her, I gotta take that chance.”

He asked me if I would do him the honour of lighting the cannon.

And to this day, I don’t know why I agreed. It seemed the right thing to do. Plus, one look into old Herbert’s sad eyes..well, ya try saying no to him. It was like refusing a puppy-dog a bone, or a kitten a ball of wool.

He shook my hand, and thanked me for all I did for him. Said I had been a great gardener, and the closest thing he had to a son. On the table in his bedroom, there was some extra pay for me and my old ma, as well as letters and trinkets for everyone in Silver Flats. He’d never gotten down to makin’ a will. Said it was complicated. But he hoped I would help give all his stuff to people who needed it most.

When he was done, he stepped into the cannon, and begged me to light the fuse.

It was the hardest thing I would have to do, for I knew I’d miss the old man. I struggled to light the fuse: my tears kept landin’ on the damn match, and puttin’ it out.

When I did, there was a huge explosion. A lot of smoke; I was coughin’ and wheezin’ like crazy. But I kept my eyes to the sky, and damn it all, if I didn’t see a dark shape shoot up into the sky, so fast it got harder to see the higher it went. It rose up past the clouds, before suddenly opening up what appeared to be a sail at its top, and canvas wings at its side, before disappearin’ from view.

And that was the last I ever saw of old Humphry Herbert.

All of Silver Flats missed him. The town just plain wasn’t the same without that old man. There wasn’t a funeral: he wouldn’t have wanted it. But everyone in town wore white, his favorite colour. Even Ma Clapham, who seemed to be crying the loudest when they announced he was gone.

The developers who bought his house couldn’t bear to tear it down. They were friends of his, after all, and decided to leave it as it was. A sorta monument, ya could say, to dear old Herbert and Layala.

People still wonder though, to this day, what happened to Herbert. Some say he probably landed somewhere in the South, and decided to make a new life there. Some say he made it to Africa, where he joined Layala’s old tribe, became a witchdoctor.

Kenneth Purvis, a professor, and the only one from Silver Flats to make it to university, says he ain’t believin’ that Herbert made it very far. Said physics wouldn’t have allowed fer’ it. Old Herbert probably died a painful death, he says, burnt up from the speed and velocity of the shot combined with the force of the explosion. He probably landed as ash somewhere in Colorado, deader than dead. All accordin’ to physics.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t trust this physics nonsense. I ain’t an educated man, ain’t went to no school, but I tell ya: if there’s a science out there that limits ya and tells ya all sorts of things ain’t possible to be done, ya better off not listening to any of it. Because nothing great was ever done by people believin’ stuff was impossible.

I like to think old Herbert made it to heaven somehow, in his Levitation Device #27. That as I write this, he’s jitterbuggin’ with his wife and all them angels, while Gabriel plays Yellow Rose of Texas on his horn.

And Lordy, one day I hope to join the old guv.

END.