DRAUMRS - Dreamweavers Among Us

6 - Duck

The yellow duck bobble-head teetered back and forth, a ridiculous grin plastered on its orange bill. It had the best view of the flight—sitting suction-cupped to the dashboard of the Twin Otter float plane as it flew south along the rugged and beautiful eastern shoreline of Georgian Bay.

The bobble-head was an old gift from Will's grandfather in recognition of his childhood nickname. William Angus Green was "Will" to most everyone but to his grandfather, who still called him Duck. Usually, he used the imperative form, as in "Duck!" Will couldn't help but dodge, even after all these years. As a child, there had usually been good reason to duck as a fat pine cone or clod of dirt whizzed by his ear. His grandfather aimed to connect and leave a good-sized bump and, at first, often did. Will, or Duck, developed the best reflexes around and could now dodge a punch as if it was coming in slow motion.

Will absentmindedly tapped the bird's head to set it fully bobbing, before checking altitude, coordinates and fuel levels. He wasn't much into superstitions or charms, but since the emergency landing days before, the duck now traveled with him. He shook his head, dumb superstitions, where do they come from?

He then turned up his headphones volume several notches to drown out the rattle of the plane's old engines with Stevie Ray Vaughan's When the House is Rockin' playing through the auxiliary input.

Even though he was made up of a 50/50 mix of indigenous and European blood, Will wasn't even partly good at representing the First Nations' part. He sucked badly at traditions, those involving groups of people in particular. And his interests certainly weren't confined by any traditional territory. In fact, in the three years since he had qualified on the dual-engine turboprop float plane, he found the wide earth much more interesting from the air, where people were just ant-size, if visible at all.

His politics were pretty much 'live and let live', which didn't leave a lot of space for discussion. At 24, he was just beginning to realize that there was too much to explore and not a lot of time to do it, as he saw it, before unavoidable family commitments and a career anchored him down.

North of the big lakes, most of the earth was still a green carpet without visible boundaries. He loved the land, but mostly because there was so much of it. He valued the money he made flying freight and fishing charters to far-flung lake outposts for Gossett Air out of Penetanguishene. He'd miss a lot of it, but he'd miss the lakes at dawn the most: flatter and smoother than any hard runway. Sometimes still reflecting stars and the moon as he swooped down on them.

Will was a month away from leaving for Boston where he would attend MIT on a graduate scholarship in aeronautical engineering. His couple-years-back undergrad degree was in electrical engineering, where he had topped his class, as he had in every grade since entering elementary school. He had good job offers at leading companies in Montreal and Seattle. Some of the positions would let him fly even bigger planes, but he felt that he still hadn't figured out enough of the science. And he was very sure that he couldn't switch to flying a desk just yet.

There were still too many unanswered questions in papers that he had written and, occasionally, published. He regularly saw flaws in others' work. To him, they were obvious errors and gaping holes in the theorem. Too often, to colleagues and to faculty advisors, they were his angels dancing on a pinhead.

"Just accept that the forest has trees; who cares the species?" a weary advisor had once cautioned him with an ill-chosen metaphor, unaware that Will could tell a white pine from a jack from 8,000 feet. In his considered view, details kept planes in the air and details would lift the next plane, that he planned to design to go farther and faster.

Plus, Will bought into his grandfather's belief that your success should come from your hands. So, he wanted to build something. He'd already sketched some thoughts on a new and even more durable bush plane design. He hoped that grad school wouldn't slow him down too much.