Strangers on a Plane

Hello again!

Well, I may have told a fib when I said there were no new comics. That is to say, no newly printed comics for me to buy. In accordance with my overwhelming desire to overachieve, I've begun work on my Lit Editing and Publishing presentation on Adhouse Books, a local Richmond comics publisher that has some really great titles.

Today I picked up Salamander Dream, Aviary, Remake, Skyscrapers of the Midwest, and Johnny Hiro. (I also just decided that when I use titles of things they ought to be italicized, don't you agree?)

I'll get a review of one or more of these comics up by tonight, once I've finished reading them all. In the meantime, here's a short scene I wrote for my Fiction Workshop. It went over well in class, despite my performance anxiety and trembling voice when reading it aloud (I'm ok with public speaking, just not reading my own work):

I had never left the United States. I guess I was always a little less cultured than everyone else, but I don’t think I’d ever admit it.
My brother, though, he’s been everywhere. Mexico City, London, Prague, and everywhere in between. He’s tanner, taller and just that much more world-wise than me. I suppose that’s why even though I’ve looked up to him since I was ten, I still take no small amount of pleasure from the fact that he’s a coked up, needle pushing failure, while I’m a successful art director. Everyone is inherently selfish like that.
I remember once I was watching my brother while we were grounded on a plane to Barcelona. His little birthday present to me that I had to pay for, my first trip out across the Atlantic, but it was just our luck that the flight was delayed at least an hour while we sat in the claustrophoic tube on the tarmac. He was five or six seats behind me, you know how airlines never seem to book you next to the people you’re traveling with.
He sat next to a young man with long straight hair, dark skin, reading some indie fashion magazine. From far off you’d probably say he and my brother were the siblings and I was the “little stranger.”
Then I heard them start up a conversation.
“God! Ah hope we freakin’ take off soon!” the young man had a thick Missisippian accent and that particular high-pitched voice people generally associate with gay guys.
“Yeah, yeah. Are you from Spain?”
“Oh no. No. Ah’ve taken more years of Spanish than Ah can count, but Ah never retain any of it, so Ah’m tryin’ to get a little exposure.”
“Oh. Ha. If I had to guess, I’d have said you were Spanish. You’d shock my brother. He always says you can usually judge a book by its cover pretty accurately.”
“Ah’d tend to agree with him. But you shouldn’t let that be your excuse for never havin’ talked to somebody. Unless they’re from the city.”
“Yeah. I guess that’s true. I think the only way to truly know someone is to find out what books or movies they like.”
“Ah know, right? It seems like everbody wants to know people’s past and what they’re all about, but Ah say no to knowin’ all that.”
“Yeah. Besides, there’s some things even the people closest to you don’t need to know.”
“Like what?”
“Um… You know? I think I just saw the mechanic drive off from under the wing. We might take off soon.”
“Haha. It’s okay man. Ah’m a republican too.”
“No, it’s not--“
That was all I managed to hear before the captain’s voice buzzed over the speaker and the little seatbelt and no smoking signs binged. I’m sure they talked more, but not nearly as much as in that moment.
You see, my brother is a lot like me. We’re both more terrified of what we know than what we don’t know. And unlike the gay republican from Missisippi, my brother and I were books whose covers offered up more truth than we imagine people could take. Nobody ever says; oh you’re a herion addict? That’s so lovely! Life had gotten a lot more complicated. It was much better when we were ten, but it took all my life to see that.

I've taken to calling it "Strangers on a Plane" as a nod to Hitchcock. But I doubt there'll be any murder in it if I decide to flesh it out into a full short story. Let me know what you think.

-Steve