Air

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Funny how it all splintered in dreams.

"Are you Jarvis? I called the fire department as soon as I saw smoke. Your mother's badly burned. I can't believe how fast it spread!"

In real life it'd happened so quickly, dozens of events and conversations taking place at once, but in his nightmares it splintered into individual segments.

Love to torture yourself, don'tcha, Jarvy?

Got to wake up.

“Out of the way; I'm a doctor. You'll have to move so we can load this stretcher.”

Eeee...

He couldn't go on like this, dreading yet desperate for sleep. It had to stop.

"Jarvis, angel, come here."

You know there's only one way to stop this, Jarvy.

“Cops here yet? Tell ‘em to hold back the crowd. We need to get this stretcher through!”

Oh god, I need to wake up.

"Don't speak, Mom. Save your strength. I hear horses; the ambulance must be here. Hold on!"

Everything gone. His father, the house, their money and possessions. All his father's research papers.

Why would anyone do this?!

Got to wake up now, Jarvy.

His mother barely made it out alive.

“Out of the way, people! Stretcher coming through!”

Neighbors saw men in white sheets pouring kerosene around the house.

“White sheets! They wore white sheets, officer! Saints preserve us, it was the clansmen!”

Burning crosses, burning houses, burning bridges...

Better wake up, Jarvy, or it'll never stop.

Eeee...

"Listen, Jarvis. Have to tell you something, angel. Almost out of time..."

Okay, I'm lying. It won't stop even if you do wake up.

He'd been at school that day, at a meeting of the Quill & Scroll Society.

It'll never stop. Never, never, never.

“Jarvis, is it? I'm Dr. Wood. I need you to keep your mother calm while we treat her burns. All unnecessary personnel, clear the ER!”

So odd to feel guilty for attending a meeting of an honor society.

Should have stayed home. Would've died with them.

"Listen, angel. Not from this country, not originally."

Eeeee...

Survivor guilt. Why is it that only the good feel guilty?

Seriously, got to wake up now.

“How's she responding, nurse?”

How could anyone do this?!

Got to wake up. Rise and shine, Jarvy!

"You must return to our homeland, angel. Not safe for you here. Not safe for you anywhere else."

Only the good suffered guilt. The wicked felt nothing but hate.

“Pulse is very weak, doctor. She's going into shock.”

Wasn't hate a sin? God said so in the Bible. The Creator hates no one.

Not even clansmen? Can't be true.

"Jarvis, listen. You walk in the light, son. You hear me, Jarvis? Always walk in the light. Be a good man, a kind man. Always be my angel, okay? Don't sink to their level."

Eeeeeee...

Got to stop this. Putting my fingers in my ears now.

"Return home, angel. Return to our homeland. Won't be safe anywhere else."

Can't hear you anymore. La la la...

"I promise, Mom.  Mom?  Mom!"

No one will call me angel ever again. No one will ever love me like that.

“How's her blood pressure now?”

Eeeeeeee...

“We're losing her, doctor.”

Hate is a sin. God said so in the Bible. The Creator hates no one. Wasn't that the only unforgivable sin? To accuse God of hate or cruelty?

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

“I'm sorry, doctor. We have a flatline.”

No, the only unforgivable sin was the failure to keep a deathbed promise to your mother. Jarvis had to return home even if it killed him. And there was only one way to get there ─ an airship called the Titan launching this Wednesday at noon.

I have to get on board no matter what.

X

Monday, April 8, 1910

I can't believe my parents are dead. I've lost everything ─ my family, our home, all our belongings, the life I knew.

The police have done nothing to find the clansmen, but I'm not surprised. There are no blacks or browns on the force ─ no people of color at all ─ so it's probably a closed case already. In any event I promised Mom I'd go to our homeland, and there's nothing holding me here now.

At the moment I'm staying with neighbors, but I can tell they're nervous about having me here. Would the clansmen return to kill me? I can't fathom why; I'm a nobody. But then, I can't imagine why they'd kill my parents either. Still, the neighbors have been lovely. They took up a collection around the neighborhood to pay for the funeral. Dad died in the house, so of course there was no─

But I don't want to think about that. Why would anyone want to kill a scientist? An ecologist, of all things, just trying to fix the environment. I can't fathom it. I only know I have to get out of here.

Today I found something that might help. All our money literally went up in smoke, so I can't even afford a steerage ticket. When Mom and Dad were alive we traveled first class. The new airship called the Titan is launching on Wednesday and it's headed for Temprynz on its maiden voyage. Temprynz isn't far from Eudonia, my birthplace; I can take a steamship from there. At least, I think I can. In this evening's paper I saw this:

Entry level field correspondent needed. No experience necessary with good references. Starting pay generous. Must be ready to leave immediately on big assignment.

What else could it mean but that they need a reporter to cover the launch? Interview's tomorrow and I'm a nervous wreck, but I have the credentials. Everything hinges on this, so here's hoping I get an offer.

  —  From the diary of Jarvis Corbin

X

Jarvis knew the white boy would get the job.

Tell me you're surprised, Jarvy.

The moment the clod tripped over his own feet and stumbled into the waiting room, Jarvis knew. Not only white, but good-looking too. Thaddeus Figby, was it? They'd attended the same school, although not the same classes. We must be close in age. Nineteen, twenty. Thaddeus had always seemed a little naive, oblivious to the problems in the world. Quintessential privileged ruling class. Nobs and noobs. What the deuce gives them the right to run things?

Love to torture yourself, don'tcha, Jarvy?

Jarvis hadn't known Thaddeus wanted to be a journalist. The knob had submitted stories to the school paper, but they hadn't struck Jarvy as anything particularly incisive or well-written. Did he need to have talent to get the position, though? No one had shown up for the interview but the two of them.

Maybe no one wants to work for the Spectator anymore for fear of getting sent to the front as a war correspondent. Wouldn't be surprised if that was the mysterious big assignment.

Pondering it now, it did seem a little too good to be true:

Entry level field correspondent needed. No experience necessary with good references. Starting pay generous. Must be ready to leave immediately on big assignment.

What a great opportunity if it had been true, though. Jarvis had expected the big assignment to be the launch of the new airship, the largest in history ─ a floating city for the swish so they could live above the pollution and poverty caused by industrialization. Many of the biggest stars in Screenland had already swooped up the first class cabins. The Titan would circle the globe continuously, stopping only to resupply. That airship was the story of the year, and Jarvis intended to be there when it sailed. The question was how to get on board.

An attractive secretary in a shirtwaist and trumpet skirt emerged from the editor's office and peeked into the waiting room. "Thaddeus Figby? Please come this way."

Ha! They've been ignoring you for half an hour, but the ofay's escorted right into the office the moment he arrives. Tell me you're surprised, Jarvy.

Well, that tore the sheet. Shouldn't they be interviewed on a first come, first served basis? Thaddeus rose and followed the secretary into the city editor's office. This didn't bode well, and Jarvy's fears were confirmed minutes later when the secretary returned to say, "Thank you so much for applying, but the position has been filled."

Jarvis nodded with gritted teeth. Rising from his seat, he headed quietly out of the building, careful not to show any anger that might justify their rejection. "You see how hostile they are, Myrtle," he imitated in a girly falsetto when safely out of range. "Better not hire them or the office will become as violent as a tenement. Mwahaha!"

Eh, that silly cow's just a secretary. She likely had no say in it. She doesn't even have the right to vote.

How did things get like this? Why was there so much competition for jobs? In another block he had his answer. The new Pottersville mill sat on the left side of the road. Jarvis peered in the window and saw a little girl tending a row of dangerously scudding bobbins, while across the street a bread line of men twined around the block. The men used to make the cloth before the machines replaced them. Since children worked cheaper than adults and the machines required no more than a child to operate them, the mill owners replaced the men with a child.

Knobs. Those men have wives and kids of their own. How are they going to support their families without jobs? Damned machinery.

A nursemaid wheeled a perambulator down the street, flanked by a brood of children. What were those children going to do for a living when they grew up if all the work was done by machines?

"Eh, they're white," Jarvis muttered, moving along. "They'll get jobs as reporters for the Daily Spectator."

X

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