Flashes Of Light

Past - Logar

I was eighteen years old and I thought my life was over.

Not in the sense that I wanted to take my own life. I'd never had the taste for suicide, and perhaps in some cases I was more of a coward than I would have liked to admit. However, in my book, honesty comes before anything, even bravery.

I just didn't know what to do once school was over. I graduated with a low score because I'd skipped too many classes, but at least there I could do what I wanted to do the most: read books and learn. I loved reading and writing, and I've always liked words. Difficult words, long words, ancient words and new words, though I've never liked 2000's internet slang. We had memes in our history books but I didn't get them. It was clear that there were some things the other kids got and I didn't, and when it came to the school tests, it was often the other way around. I often interrupted the lessons to make jokes or ask impertinent questions, but it still beat being at home with my father, when he had the decency to show up there.

In fact, as we grew apart, my father started taking a lot of time off from me. When he wasn't working on the flying machines, he could often be found in the bars. I remember he used to tell me that I could go to the bars too, once I was done with school, but I was ever the ambitious little cunt and I remember I didn't really give a damn about turning out like dear old Dad.

I still don't, but I wished I had shown more respect back then.

So, since the music and the wrap-a-pills could only keep a young man busy for a short amount of time, when my former high school teacher told me my grades in physics were so excellent that I'd been asked to work on the flying machines, I accepted.

It would have been Dad's job, but better, since he was only an engineer who fixed them. I admit, this is one of the things that caused the greatest strain in our relationship. He could never see far ahead, enough to understand where my ambition would take me, and I could never be as reassuring as to make him understand that no, despite all appearances, I really didn't want to beat him at everything he did. That I really liked him, especially after Mom was gone, and that he was my only long-lasting friend.

I was a little immature for my age. I think he loved me in his own way, but that he would have never considered himself my friend.

If I acted like a brat some of the time, it was due to my young age. Ever since the span of life reached the average of 100 years per human, the twenty-somethings began to be viewed and treated as kids. Of course, the percentages never count people like my mother, who died young of illness.

I went to this huge convention about the flying machines, and Dad resented me because he was not invited. But it was mostly for young people who thought about working at one of Toutatis' factories, like an open day.

I remembered that I only met The Anti once, and I didn't get a favourable impression.

However, my family could really use the money.

The first time I met The Anti was a few years before. Sometimes, I would ask Dad to see the factory where he worked, and where I could see all the models of flying machines. They sorta looked like Leonardo Da Vinci's prototype but with a modern edge, built with materials I didn't even understand.

That day while I was checking them out I felt an annoying voice talking behind my back.

"They all want to know why I made flying machines. There was an old joke back then when I was young, something along the lines of 'look what the future's turning to! And I used to think we would have flying machines'. They're important for the human race, you know? And not because they fly. Because they've been out in the imagination so long, you can't build a future without them in it."