Flyer

I scrubbed voraciously at a dark grey smear of paint that was marring the pristine yellow surface of my flyer. Someone must have tapped it on their way out of the lot, I thought to myself. How careless... it was probably someone who hadn't needed to work two side jobs like I had in order to finally purchase my own Model 3. The grimace that had made its way onto my face while I scrubbed melted into a slight grin as I remember how proud I had felt the day I walked into Fusion's Flyers with enough money in my account to claim ownership over one of their beautiful, sleek machines.

Content that I had removed most of the offending paint, I tossed my messenger bag into the compartment behind the driver's seat. As I hopped into the shallow basin seat of my flyer, I pressed my hand onto the driver touchpad. The screen flickered green and the engine emitted a low, melodic hum as the lightweight metal began lifting ever so slightly off the ground. The moment I felt the spindly metal legs click as they folded in seamlessly to the bullet-shaped body of the flyer, I pushed my finger firmly onto the pad. The flyer shot forward with a roar, and every vertebra of my spine compressed horizontally into the springy black cushion of the backrest, as if they had each forgotten something important at our point of departure and were reaching back in time and space for it.

Once my back had relaxed and my body had settled itself with its new state of motion, I used my index finger to draw an arc on the touchpad, a gentle, curving one extending from the lower left-hand quadrant to the upper right one. The flyer began following my drawn trajectory, and I could feel the seat dipping sideways as if it were trying to spill me out to the right. I flew past a large water tower, the third one that had been built to supplement the dryness here on Mars. Photographs from my History of Settlement class had shown it in its early building stages, a glossy white monolith. Now, having been facing Mars' frequent windstorms for at least 7 years, it was no longer white but a shade of rusted pink; a color that matched the streaks cast by the setting sun on the planet's dusty skies.

[currently listening to: Omnia & Ira -The Fusion | Zedd ft. Matthew Koma -Spectrum ]