O Brave New World - Chapter VI

Chapter 6

There were no birds singing. No crickets chirping. There was only but the sun and the cold air. The cold, chilling air. Blow the winter wind did; so unkind it was. I remember it that day. I remember it well. I echoed our plight in life. Lifeless, unrelenting, fleeting. Here in the field we lay, on broken stalks of corn. They too were cold.

I awoke from my slumber. I could taste the grogginess that this morning had brought us. A short sun on the horizon, creeping its way above us all, to mock us in glory. The damned do not shun from its gaze, but rather welcome it, as it allows them to find their prey more easily. I surveyed our great crash before us.

The winged beast was thoroughly grounded. Its nose was dug deep into the ground, and one of its wings had broken off. Even its tail was slightly bent. It would never see the skies again. Here it would remain in its shallow grave. No smoke, no fire, no explosion; it was by the grace of some unknown force that we survived. Survived again.

My companion was but a couple of feet from me. He was lying on the ground, face up. I rushed to his side, nudging him. He stirred awake as well, moaning and holding his head. Coughing, I helped him up and he too looked around to survey what had befallen us. And as I looked for a second time, we both arrived to the same conclusion.

“Where is that damn pilot?”

I too was bemused by our situation. It would seem that Damien had taken our things—at least our weapons and our food rations. Our bags lay strewn out beside the plane, opened. My companion rushed to them and frantically opened them, searching. I could tell he was stifling his anger for fear of attracting attention to us, but how he thought that would help as we stood beside an iron-winged beast grounded nose-first into the dirt was beyond me.

“That bastard cheated us!”

I did not think it was of the appropriate time to mention to my companion that we had not given him much reason to trust us, given his temper, and given more the light of our situation, for I too was without a weapon to defend myself with. We gathered our packs. My companion surmised that Damien the pilot had left in the general direction where the corn stalk was bent in a fine line, and so we followed the broken path.

It did not take long before we were out of the field and onto open ground. Before us was a tree line. To our right were more trees. But to our left, off in the distance, was a road, and beyond that road was a house with a large tree in front of it. My companion surmised that that is where Damien must have gone to and so we began our trek to the house.

We were cautious, however, in our approach. Without weapons, we had no means to defend ourselves, and so we made our way back into the stalk of corn as we came close to the house. We moved back a little before we could see the road mere inches from the field, and, again, the house once more, but this time to our right. Across the street was yet another field of corn, and on mark, we ran across the street and into that field. Eventually, through the creeping of that field, we were at the edge of the field and mere yards from the house.

My companion told me to wait in the field while he made his way to the house. I watched from a distance as my companion crawled across the grass at the back of the house, inching towards a shed. Once there he entered the shed and a moment later exited with a shovel. I watched as he crept to the back screen porch and quietly opened the door and entered the house.

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