Up in Flames

Allen lit his cigarette and shook his match out before dropping it. He ground it with the heel of his shoe into the damp grass. He smiled up at me while taking a drag on his cigarette, "What?"

I shook my head, "I don't know. Doesn't the taste of the smoke bother you?"

Allen threw his head back and laughed a long, low chuckle, "For a 17 year old, you're pretty darn naïve. You may as well be a little school boy."

I rolled my eyes, "I'm 18 years old."

Allen looked at me, his wide eyes mocking, "Oh yeah? When was your birthday?"

"Yesterday �" I was born May 5, 1919."

Allen pulled his cigarette back out of his mouth, "You're lyin'. And no, I don't mind the taste of smoke, 'cause I don't swallow it."

He blew a long gray stream of smoke out of his mouth into my face. I coughed and put my hand over my face. Allen laughed at this and turned away. He wandered away from me, as if to distance himself from the twit doubled over coughing. Allen walked back once I recovered myself. As he stepped up beside me, he stepped into a large puddle of muddy water, dropping his cigarette.

"Damn! My shoe's ruined now."

He bent down and inspected his shoes, wrinkling his nose, "Those damn thunderstorms, making us wait forever and now-"

He gestured with his foot, shaking it back and forth. The shoe flopped wildly, in danger of plunking back into the puddle. Allen stops and shakes his head angrily, "I don't know why the stupid zeppelin couldn't come anyway. What's wrong with a few thunderstorms?"

Vernon, who had been standing in front of us, turned his blond head around to roll his eyes at Allen, "You know why. Lightning and hydrogen don't mix."

"And the Hindenburg is one big fat grape full of hydrogen just waiting to burst into flame," Allen replied in a bored voice. "That still doesn't change the fact that we've been standing here for ages."

Allen moaned dramatically at the last syllable, dragging it out before saying with disgust, "It's past 7:00 for crying out loud!"

Vernon snapped at him, "Shut up!"

Allen clamped his mouth shut and folded his arms, "Follow your own advice. Besides, it's only a stupid balloon."

Vernon arched an eyebrow, "A huge one. They wrote about it in the papers. Its first flight, it sailed around, spouting the national anthem."

Allen laughed loudly and sarcastically, "It played German songs over the Atlantic ocean?"

Vernon rolled his eyes again, so hard now I was surprised they didn't fall out, "No, you twit-"

I interrupted, wary of a full-fledged fight, "Its first actual flight wasn't over the Atlantic. It was over Germany."

I paused. There was an awkward silence as Allen and Vernon continued to glare at each other. I continued, hoping they'd listen to me instead of punching each other, "Did you know that it opened the 1936 Olympics? It was a pretty big deal. It flew around with a big flag and everything."

Neither Allen nor Vernon seemed to be paying attention to me. I gave up and watched the Hindenburg, a large silver oval floating in the dusky blue sky. It flew majestically past the curved moon. The wind picked up, as if the presence of the zeppelin even caused the Earth to gasp. The sun bowed its head beneath the horizon, acknowledging the Hindenburg as the true king of the sky. Vernon and Allen noticed my silence and turned to look up at the zeppelin, too.

Vernon stared, his mouth open a little, "I never get tired of looking at it."

Allen retorted in an exasperated voice, "Not even after its been circling this place for 3 hours and dropping more water ballast than what's in whole entire ocean? I'm surprised we aren't swimming right now."

Vernon turned around, his eyes shooting daggers at Allen, "Do you always have to come up with some stupid-"

Allen cut him off, "I'm just saying that this zeppelin doesn't look so impressive after seeing it for half the day while it's dumping water on us."

"They're dumping the water because it's tail heavy, but you would know all this if you weren't so-"

Allen nodded meaningfully, "Exactly my point. If it was any good, it wouldn't be such a hassle to get it to land."

Vernon turned fully around and looked like he was about to punch Allen.

I interrupted, while staring up at the zeppelin, "It's majestic alright, but I don't think it'll replace other modes of transportation."

Allen narrowed his eyes at me, "With words like that, you could'a gone to college."

I shrugged, kicking myself for using big words again, "My old man didn't want some 'wimpy know-it-all' for a son. He told me I couldn't go. And that was that �" I went into the navy instead, and now I'm here. He still couldn't stop me from reading though he did attempt to beat the words right out of me. It didn't work."

Allen nodded satisfied with my answer. Vernon looked at me, his eyes horrified. I supposed his pa didn't come home with beer on his breath.

There was a short pause before we turned out attention back up to the huge hydrogen filled balloon above us. It made a large S-turn high overhead and then the landing lines were dropped. As we scrambled to catch them and stop the zeppelin from floating away from the mooring mast, Allen muttered, "At last. They took their time."

Some of the boys around us tore off to catch the other line dangling from the opposite side of the Hindenburg. We held the huge line and waited for another line to drop from the nose of the zeppelin. Allen tapped his soggy foot impatiently.

I looked over at him and his face had a tinge of red on it. I squinted, confused. The sun had gone down already. I craned my neck back, squinting into the sky. I almost dropped the rope. Far above us, huge flames dance along the tail fin of the Hindenburg. I stared speechlessly, my hands curling uselessly around the rope. Then, the screaming started. It was shrill and high with low tones hidden underneath. It sounded like the sky was being ripped apart. Beside me Vernon gasped, "No, oh god no!"

I ran. I dropped the line and sprinted so fast I almost flew. I stared at the ground, at the perfectly wet ground. I felt that if I looked up, I would be up there in the flames, high above the ground, burning. Then from behind me I hear our chief, Bull Tobin yell over the pandemonium, "Navy men, stand fast!"

I turned around and my spine tingled with terror. The airship had sunk to the ground, still on fire. The flames were so bright they burned my eyes. I passed a man in a neat brown suit moaning into a recording machine, "Oh the humanity!"

I tried not to think about the last time I had seen those malevolently bouncing red flames. I had jumped out of the second floor window and ran away. I had only stopped after I was a safe distance from my house. I had seen my sister's terrified face at the window, crying. I was too scared to run back in, to try to save her. Later, the belated firemen told me that I couldn't have saved her or my mother.

Now, though, I could save someone. I hesitated for a moment on the edge of the wreckage before shedding my fear and diving into the inferno. I felt strangely calm as I ducked underneath bent metal bars, searching. I almost tripped over him. He was covered in black and didn't look human at all. The only reason I knew he was alive was his pained moaning. I dragged him out, trying not to listen to his screams.

I set him down next to crying boy. The boy looked up at me and wailed, "Where's mama? Where's daddy? Where's-"

He broke off in a choked sob and bent his head. I picked him up and held him as he howled for his parents. Nobody had hugged me as my house burnt down. Nobody had hugged me as I sobbed my heart out. Nobody hugged me as my father drank his first cup of whisky in a decade. Nobody hugged me as my father beat me.

Around us, men ran back and forth in those voices only used in a disaster. It was desperate and horrified and scared, but still hushed against the backdrop of catastrophe. Men in suits wrote frantically on notepads. A man wandered past in a singed suit, muttering in a crazed voice about his dog. People rushed out of the flames, carrying the scorched leftovers of people. The air smelled of smoke, that particular blend of death and burnt dreams.

I stood there in the midst of insanity with a half-dead man at my feet and a traumatized boy in my arms. I stared at the once great airship, now nothing but a wreckage of skeletal black metal. Hot tears ran down my cheeks. I couldn't close my eyes. The flames of destruction burned before me, laughing.

The future had gone to hell.

Author's Note

Any advice would be appreciated - especially anything that bothers you about the story overall (not grammar).