Keep Busy

17.

The airport was light blue.

Everything.

Trashcans, carpet, windows, people.

Then Frank was on the plane, sitting next to Jane. It had always been Jane. She was hungrily snacking on a plate of brains.

She turned to him, as if noticing him for the first time. "Would you like a bite?"

That's when Frank got mad.

Did everything have to be a movie reference?

Jane was Hannibal Lector now.

For the love of god!

"No, I don't want a fucking bite!" he shouted, attracting the attention of several other passengers. "No, I don't want any fucking brains, no fucking Chianti and no goddamn fava beans!" The kid sitting in front of Frank peaked over the seat. "What are you looking at fuckface? Sit back down!" The kid sat.

Frank stood up.

"Has the whole world gone crazy?" He had his arms out in a pleading fashion and noticed at the end of one of them was a little black box with a flashing red button—in the other he had tattered copy of the Koran. He could hear his voice shouting at the stunned passengers—blaming them for Kanye West and reality television but his mind was busy taking stock of his person.

Aside from the detonator he noticed he was wearing a dynamite vest complete with a Felix the Cat clock... happily ticking away.

Why would I need a detonator AND a clock?

Do time bombs have detonators? Or do they just blow up at the set time?

In the hand that had the religious tome was now a box cutter.

That's not better, he thought.

The song 911 is a Joke, by Public Enemy was playing from somewhere and Frank blushed at the song's new meaning. Those silly rappers were just trying to slander the New York City police department, they couldn't have known how many of them would have died when the towers came down.

"You know," he was still shouting at the passengers, "if you fold a twenty-dollar bill in the right way you can see the World Trade Center blowing up. This was predestined. This has always happened. Just like in that movie Demolition Man, with Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes. They predicted in that movie that Arnold Schwarzenegger was going to be the Governor of California! They did! Well, it wasn't California, it was New-Cali-Hope-Land, or some shit. But the point is, he has always been the Governor—the World Trade Center has always been blown up—the dead have always risen..."

Jane, still sitting next to him, tugged on his shirt. Frank looked down to see a little greasy, grey glob on the end of her fork.

She was holding it up to him.

"Last bite," she said in sing-song voice.

Frank fumed. He looked at the detonator and pushed the red button. Nothing happened. The passengers all looked at him, embarrassed, like they were watching a child botch a talent show performance.

"Did they really predict Arnold would be Governor?" a disembodied voice asked. A male voice Frank didn't recognize. He looked around the cabin as the scene began to spiral in on itself.

Frank opened his eyes to find himself laying in a squeaky, thin bed. He was in a claptrap vintage travel trailer lit with battery powered lanterns. The strange voice originated from a burly looking guy with a big scraggly beard, who was apparently the type of man to zip up and re-fasten his belt after leaving the bathroom—which is what he was doing as he looked at Frank from the open accordion door.