Conversations Above the Clouds

7 • 2:25 p.m.

[2:25 p.m.]

"Ladies and gentlemen, we will be landing in a short while. Please make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in full upright position, seat belts securely fastened, and carry-on luggage stowed underneath the seat in front of you or in the overhead bins. Thank you."

"Rocket ship. I just really want to build a rocket ship," Lucas simply said, as he wore his denim jacket back on.

"Hmm, sounds like something Jimmy Neutron would say."

"Funny you should say that since I have Brain Blast! inked just below my collar bone," Lucas said as he hooked his finger and slightly pulled his shirt down, exposing something that might've had surprised her.

Ina blinked, as she searched for the words. "Does it? All I see are arrows and pointy figures."

"It's actually written in a dingbat font. Wingdings three," he stated, hoping that Ina would see the humor in it. Lucas was actually a fan of the cartoon series back in his childhood years, and it was his favorite catchphrase.

Three years ago, he randomly decided to have it inked, but since he was still a minor and his parents heavily disapproved, he got it tattooed and wittingly customized under the consent of his hip, older sister.

They even traveled all the way to Connecticut since his residing state did not allow tattoos under the age of eighteen at all.

"Hey, that's so cool! You're all that and a bag of chips," Ina exclaimed as she cracked a grin.

"I heard you the second time around, Miss Skittles."

"It's my favorite thing to say, Curly Top."

Lucas sarcastically shuddered at the ridiculous nickname she decided to call him. He leaned towards her side and stared straight through the airplane window, all the while making sure he could still see a cameo of her face from his perspective.

"You see, I have a thing for anything that's up in the air. Birds, planes, hot air balloons. My first toy was a kite, and I loved that kite. My siblings and I used to run through this very big field, and we'd see whose kite reaches the top first. I would always win." With that, Lucas continued to talk about his fascination about the sky, which expanded all the way to outer space.

He wanted to be that guy, or even just one of the guys who could create a vessel that would reach a place that was bigger than the world they were living in. To start with, the idea was a hard pill to swallow, but to Lucas, nothing was impossible.

"It's amazing, right? I mean, take this damn aircraft, for example. Look at you and I. Look around you, we're floating in mid-air—we're having a conversation above the clouds!"

Lucas saved himself as he took a deep breath from talking a mile a minute. At that point, his arms were growing tired from discussing his life-long dreams so animatedly.  

"You amuse me, you know that? You dream big," said Ina, which sounded like a backhanded compliment to Lucas. She might've thought that he was being ridiculous, but it really was just his elementary way of narrating his aspiration. 

He just shrugged at her comment. "There's nothing wrong with that. The bigger, the better. The more challenging, the better. I'm all up for that."

"Are you saying you want to be the next Neil Armstrong?"

"No. I don't want to be the next anybody. I want to pioneer things and make my prospective predecessors proud. I just want to be known as the Lucas Anthony Randal, nothing else."

And Lucas was determined about that certain goal. Truth to be told, he was always one of those attention-seeking guys back in high school. It didn't necessarily mean he possessed a haughty attitude at that point—he just wanted to stand out.

He looked at Ina earnestly, slowly learning that the lack of self-confidence was her main millennial problem.

"You wouldn't want to be called the next uh, Max Martin, right? Or the next Taylor Swift? Or the next Bob Dylan. You just want to be known as the Ina Skittles."

"Ina St. Clair," she corrected, giggling and shaking her head at what Lucas had associated her last name with.

Ina St. Clair, he repeated inside his head. "Lovely name."

Ina's lips curved up into a smile again. She held the expression directed to him longer than Lucas was expecting, and he already began to feel a little bit on the edge, yet strangely, he liked it.

"Why are you smiling like that?" he finally asked, breaking the awkward silence.

Ina shook her head and turned herself back to the window. "Nothing."

"Cabin crew, please take your seats for landing."

"Wow, look at that view!" She chimed in, motioning Lucas and the already-awoken Clem to check out the scenery with her.

Lucas took a peek as well and happened to saw the divide between the blue and the green, the ocean and the grasslands. He could already spot the gray-ish outlines of the buildings and the long, vein-like roads. He was just minutes away from home again.

He saw Ina's shoulder heaved up then down, probably reeling in the sight of her new address for the next years to come.

"So long Florida paradise, Boston looks promising in my eyes—ooh, word vomit. Now where is my handy-dandy notebook...?" she searched for her pocket all the way to her bag, rummaging inside until she pulled a large, glittery, turquoise notebook.

As Ina was busy flipping through the pages, Lucas stole a quick look at the contents, and he saw lots and lots of messy penmanship—possibly compositions she had written all throughout her years. 

There were also entries that seemed to be like a collection of musical arrangements, a concept he couldn't comprehend as Lucas's worst subject back in high school was apparently Ina's forte. Her wandering mind translated into the random, colorful doodles that were sprawled across every paper.

It was as if Lucas just caught a glimpse of Ina's true colors in that notebook, like a personality that was aching to burst.

"Do you always bring that with you?" he asked. 

Lucas also had his own version of a handy-dandy notebook that he kept, though they were all written in graphing papers. It contained a hodgepodge of technical procedures, scientific designs, calculations and miscalculations—though unlike hers, it was in readable handwriting.

Ina nodded, her eyes fixated at her notebook as she was jotting down what she said earlier.

"Yeah. Inspiration would hit me anywhere, anytime. I can't linger it in inside my head for too long."

"Well, isn't that such a breeze for you, coming from the fact that you just looked outside the window," Lucas said, though he silently agreed. He got her point because he had those moments, too.

Ina slowly lifted her head and looked at him with an impish grin.

"Oh you know...it's just one of the most stimulating experiences ever."