Tag: #amwriting

That helicopter story that kept me awake – Episode 9

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What just happened?

…

My turn to put him under the spotlight, for a minute, then two.

“There are no optional questions here, Mr. James.”

No, but some needed careful consideration, like throwing the dead pilot under the bus.

“Roy, the pilot, was adding some hours to his fly time, probably looking for a promotion.”

“So it was not a proper sanctioned operation.”

Looking for a scapegoat higher up the food chain.

“You need the commander’s authority to go up, so it was sanctioned.”

“Then this commander could have ordered the pilot to fly into the no-fly zone.”

My thought too, but I wasn’t going to fuel his suspicions.

“For what reason, after all, it’s not called a no-fly zone just so people can write the words on a map.”

He didn’t reply. I had thought he might tell me he was the one asking the questions.

He let me stew for a few more minutes, then, “You don’t seem to know much about anything Mr. James, whereas we know a lot about you.”

The ‘you’ he was referring to wasn’t just me, but our whole operation and what we were doing, which, of course, I wasn’t privy to. Did we have a spy in our midst?

“One more time, Mr James, can you tell me what the helicopter was doing in the no-fly zone?”

It was accompanied by another of those smiles, all-knowing perhaps, or trying to make me believe he did. But the bottom line was, if he did, he was not going to tell me.

Instead, the smile turned to a scowl. “I do not believe you are as uninformed as you say you are so I suggest most strongly that you give up this appearance of innocence. I shall ask once more Mr. James, and if you are not forthcoming, the matter will be out of my hands. I assure you, you will not like the alternative.”

I was sure I wouldn’t like the alternative.

“The answer sadly will still be the same, so if you must, I’m sure I won’t be able to talk you out of it.”

He simply shook his head and left the room, leaving me to ponder what my fate would be.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

That helicopter story that kept me awake – Episode 8

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Was that a battle of wits?

…

I think I won the battle of wits, or whatever it was.

A few moments later he sat on the other side, pushing the chair back from the table, and me, as a deliberate act.

Distancing.

Besides adopting the speak when spoken to route, I was also adopting that age old modus operandi of not volunteering anything. If they knew anything they would have to tell me what they knew.

So, to begin with, another round of silence.

Then, after a few more minutes, s thin knowing smile, as if he knew everything I’d do before I did. Perhaps he was a psychology professor.

“What we you doing in a no fly zone?”

Well that answered at least two questions right there. We were where we were not supposed to be, and, as a stab in the dark, knowing how good the pilot was, we had deliberately strayed there.

On orders, or curiosity. No, orders.

Reason, suspected enemy or other activity in a designated area being used as cover. Had the Commander known about this and ordered a discreet incursion.

It felt more like a routine operation.

“I was not the pilot. You’d have to ask him, although that might be difficult now he’s dead.”

“The nature of you pre op briefing, then?”

“There wasn’t one, or if there was, I wasn’t included.”

“That would be a violation of regulations would it not?”

“You’d have to ask the military lawyers. I just make up the numbers, and do as I’m told.” I could add more but don’t volunteer information. Let them dig for it.

“Then why were you on board?”

He asked that question as if it was a surprise to him or someone else.

I think at that moment I realised there might be bigger fish that might get fried from this interview. There was an arrangement in place that if the pilot wanted to go up for extra hours, he had to take someone like me along, for situations like that which had happened.

This had been sanctioned by the Commander, but I don’t think it included heading out to hot spots. If this man was from our side, he might be on a witch hunt.

I looked at him in a new light.

This man was trouble of a different sort.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

That helicopter story that kept me awake – Episode 6

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Locked up with nowhere to go

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It looked like a military camp, but the soldiers were not like my captor. They were as I had expected, of foreign origin. The woman driving the pickup was American, and also the last person I’d expect to see in what was quite obviously a military camp.

The pickup stopped with the brakes squealing outside a large wooden building covered in camouflage netting. The man sitting next to me got up, jumped off the end of the vehicle. The woman got out, they exchanged words in quiet voices I could not hear properly, then she walked away.

He walked down the side of the vehicle hitting the metal side quite hard. To wake me up, perhaps.

“Get down Mr. James. I’m not buying the jelly legs anymore.”

I shrugged. I hadn’t been pretending when they picked me up but maybe he knew my condition better than I did. I didn’t think it was worth annoying him.

I slid to the end of the well and dangled my legs over the side then slipped slowly till my feet touched the ground. Aches and pains in my ankles and knees, but they would hold me up.

Time to move on.

He stood beside me. “This way.”

As I surmised, we went into the wooden building, down a narrow passageway for a distance, and, judging by the gentle downward slope and the temperature drop, we were either going into a cave or underground.

A minute, two, then he stopped and opened a door. “Inside.”

I took a deep breath and stepped into the room, expecting to be either shot or worse.

But it was nothing like that. It was just an empty room with a camp stretcher.

The man put his head in the doorway. “Get some rest, Mr. James.”

The door swung shut and I heard the key turn in the lock. This was not a room that could readily be escaped from.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

In a word: needle

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In the current times, the word needle is very polarising.

Will you have the vaccine, or not.  Is one of the reasons simply because you hate needles?

I know I do and have a fear factor of 100%.  Fortunately, I got very sick a few years ago and spent 10 days in the hospital, and was forced to have multiple needles every day.

Now it’s not so hard

But, I digress.

A needle is one of those things used in the medical profession mainly to deliver vaccines and medicine.  It is a very small cylinder.

A needle can be used to sew up a garment or make repairs.  This is a smallish piece of metal with an eyelet.

A needle can also be used to stitch up wounds, though it’s best you have a local anesthetic first.

Another way of using needles is to describe tiny icicles which hurt when they hit your face or your eyes.  It is called a needle effect.

Then, another use of the word, is to needle someone, that is to say, bombard them with questions, or annoy them.

It’s a pointer on a dial, like that of a fuel gauge, which for me, always seems to hover just above empty.  It can also be on a compass, where heading north is not always clear especially where magnets are nearby.

A fir tree’s leaves are more like needles.

You need one to play a record on a gramophone, not that they exist anymore.

Paradoxically it can also be used to describe a pointy rock or an obelisk-like “Cleopatra’s Needle”

It is also an etching tool.

That helicopter story that kept me awake – Part 5

It a ‘Houston, we have a problem’ moment

Our hero has survived the crash, now he’s stuck in enemy territory.

…

This was supposed to be a milk run.  There had been no reported activity in our zone and the pilot had decided to go up just the log some more air time.

He was hoping after reaching a 1,000 hours so he might be able to move to fixed wing aircraft and then move on to becoming an airline pilot.  Unfortunately, he was not going become anything now.

That didn’t explain why we encountered a convoy out in the desert, especially one with a rocket launcher and English speaking soldier types.

Did we stumble across another outfit running a secret operation and mistook us for the enemy?  It didn’t seem the case, our helicopter was distinctively marked just so we wouldn’t be mistaken, and then there was the fact the man knew my name.

How could that happen?  It would need someone back at the base to tell someone of the fact the helicopter was going up and who was in it, and there weren’t too many people who knew that information.

And only one who knew exactly when and where we would be.  Unless, of course, the pilot had strayed into a no-fly zone.  There was only one that I knew of and it was nowhere near our flight path.  Of course, it wouldn’t take much to bamboozle me in the air because I had no sense of direction.

Unless the pilot had another agenda.  I could hardly tell where we were because desert all looked the same to me, and navigation wasn’t my strongest point.

After the first few miles of very bumpy road, I managed to get into a sitting position and look in the direction we were heading.

More desert.

Ten minutes later I could see an encampment in the distance, literally an oasis in the middle of nowhere.  A secret base camp or something else?

As we got closer I could see it was mostly covered by camouflage so it couldn’t be seen from above. Clever.  Chances were we had no idea this place was in the desert.

Who or what is waiting for him?

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

In a word: Meat

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We all know what meat is, the flesh of an animal like cattle, pigs, sheep, even goats.

It can be used to describe a pie, such as a meat pie, but the odd thing is that it doesn’t have to have 100% meat in it.

It can be used in the context of humans, that depending on when you eat certain types of food that will put meat on your bones.

Meat can also be used to describe the fleshy part of nuts, fruit, or eggs.

Then there’s the meat of the matter, which is the crux or basis of the argument or message you want to get across.

And a rather interesting if obscure meaning is to describe a favorite occupation or activity.

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Another form of meet is what we do at a coffee shop, on a date, at a pub, or any number of different places.

Gather together for a meeting, such as a board of directors or a committee.

It can be used to describe an athletic or swimming carnival.

How about you meet me halfway, in a negotiation, not on a long road trip

…

To dole out or allot something like punishment, is to mete it out.

Searching for locations: New York to Vancouver

The flight from Newark via Air Canada to Vancouver is about 5:30pm so we are slated to be picked up by the limousine about 2:30.

We have to be out of our room by 11am so we decided the day before that on our last day in New York we’d go to the Times Square red lobster.
It gives us about three hours to get there, eat, and get back.

It’s always fun packing bags the day you leave, so most of the hard work was done earlier. This time it’s particularly a trial because we have so much stuff to fit into a small space, and weight considerations are always paramount because of the 23kg limit.

Outside is has gone from minus four to minus two in the two hours before we leave the hotel at 11:30, but that’s not so much of a problem because we have a long walk from 56th street to 41st street to warm us up.

At least today it’s not so cold, as it has been previously.

At Red Lobster it’s not difficult to make a decision on what to have, the mix and match special, with Lobster alfredo, filet mignon, and parrot island coconut shrimp, with walts special, though what that will remain a surprise until it is served.

To drink, it was the Blue moon beer, wheat type.

For appetizers, we had scones that are supposedly bread but to me are dipped in garlic butter and baked like a scone. Australian style. They are absolutely delicious.

There is an expression a one drink screamer and we’ve got one, but the truth is the drinks are very lethal. Pure alcohol and ice with a touch of soda.

The meals at this Red Lobster are definitely better than those we had in Vancouver, except for the pasta with lobster I had which was little more than a tasteless congealed mess after it reached the table. This did not detract from the deliciously cooked and served seafood that accompanied it.

All in all, after such a great lunch and the thought of having to walk ten blocks the decision was unanimous to get a cab which took us back to the hotel by a rather interesting, if not exactly the most direct, route. I think the driver guessed we were tourists.

We are picked up at the hotel by a driver in a large Toyota which had enough space for 3 passengers and all our bags. The driver was chatty and being foreign, preferred soccer to the other traditional American sport. Don’t ask me how the conversation turned to sports, but we may have mentioned we went to the ice hockey.

At Newark airport, all I have room for is a glass of burned beer, whatever that means, though it has an odd taste, and a Samuel Adams 76 special which was rather tasty.

Today we are flying in a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner with a maximum of 298 passengers in three classes.

It looks very new even though it is about 6 months old. It has seating of 3 x 3 x 3, and we are in row 19, just behind the premium economy cabin, and the closest to the front of the plane of all the Air Canada flights.

Engine startup is loud at the lower revolutions with the vibration going through the airframe. Like all planes, the flaps being extended, it is very noisy. All of the vibrations go away when the engines are up to speed. On take off the engines at max are not as noisy and other planes and relatively quiet. It will be interesting to see what the landing is like.

In flight when not experiencing turbulence the ride is very smooth and reasonably quiet which is better than the other planes with seeming continuous engine whining and the flow of air past the fuselage.

The seats are comfortable but still just a little small and the middle passenger can be tightly squeezed in if the two on either side are larger than normal. The seats fully recline but the seatback is not completely in your face, and bearable when you recline your own seat.

There are several seats by the toilets that would be terrible on a long-distance flight because the passenger inevitably comes very close to the seat when entering and leaving. As for the toilets, they are larger than any of the other airplanes, and so too, coincidentally, are the windows.

The plane also makes the same amount of noise when it lands so I’m failing to see what’s so good about it. I’ve also been in an Airbus A350 and those planes are nothing to write home about either.

I suspect the only advantage of having planes is for airlines. Fewer costs and more sardined passengers.

It’s something else I can write off my bucket list.

When we arrive back in Vancouver it’s the same reasonably simple process to get through immigration.

Outside our driver is waiting and this time we have an Escalade picking us up. A very large SUV that fits us all and our luggage.

But…

We were lucky because we were supposed to be picked up in a sedan and the baggage would not have fitted which would have involved one of us taking a cab with the extra luggage.

He was in the neighborhood and picked up the call. His advice, called the service and request a bigger car and pay the difference. We did. It was going to cost another 20 dollars.

As for the hotel, what is it with hotels and late-night arrivals? We get in, the check-in was smooth, we get to the room. Very large with a separate bedroom. But only a sofa bed.

It was not a desirable option, not before 24 hours in relatively squashed plane seats, so it necessitated a change of rooms to one a bit smaller, but a corner room with a reasonable view, and two proper beds.

Late night, need rest, but we have free breakfast so there will be no tarrying next morning. We have to be down by 9am being Sunday.

Besides, we have a mission. There is a toys-are-us nearby and it does have the toy we want. All we need to find is a cab.

That helicopter story that kept me awake – Part 4

How did I get into this mess in the first place?

I had a few moments for reflection…

…

When I opened my eyes, it was a revelation that I was still alive.

Whether or not I was still on one piece was not exactly the first thought that crossed my mind.

It was, oddly enough, how I got into this situation.

So, two days earlier…

Someone once told me it was not a good idea to ask your commander out to dinner. Not a date, just the fact you’d like to get to know her better.

Yes, my commanding officer was a woman.

I thought the dinner went well, we found some common ground, ice hockey, and baseball, albeit barracking for different teams.

Then, the next day when I went into ‘the office’, the operations officer called me aside.

“Who’d did you piss off?”

Good question, had I, and who? And asked, “You tell me.”

“Apparently the Commanding Officer. She asked me to put you on patrol, where nothing ever happens and it’s as boring as shit.”

Usually, I was in the front line, what they called in the army, cannon fodder. Some said I had a death wish.

I shrugged. “No doubt she has her reasons. I could think of worse assignments.”‘

“Well, till then you’re on standby. Make the most of it.”

Of course, the question I should be asking is why she had put me on patrol, where I was rostered for front line recovery.

When I got back to my quarters, I called her.

Her assistant answered, “The commanding officer is not available at the moment and has advised me that she will remain so for the next forty-eight hours.”

That was the end of the conversation.

How come she had not told me? Probably none of my business, but it was worrying.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

It’s almost NaNoWriMo 2021

Time to get into writing mode

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Today I set up my entry for this year’s event.

The working title of the project is ‘A Score To Settle’, though like all titles, it may change once the editor has read the first draft.

I have had this story in the back of my mind for some time, and every now and then, wrote a piece when an idea came to me. I had the general outline of what was going to happen, it’s now time to flesh out the plot points into a story.

What’s it about?

Coming back from a rest-induced hiatus, our main character is sent on what, at first, seems to be a simple mission, but when was anything simple?

And what could be more interesting than a human rights conference being held in a country that had been known for committing such violations, while trying to show the world it’s moving towards a more progressive and liberated government.

And intelligence advises that it is possible revolutionaries might try to use the conference to stage a coup de grace, ensuring that there will be no shortage of shadowy goings-on.

More will be revealed over the next month as the story progresses.

Sometimes it’s better to say that an expressed opinion is your own

It’s always a good thing to get that across especially if you work for an organization that could misinterpret what that opinion is, or generally have an opposing opinion.  Of course, by saying your opinions are your own, you’re covering yourself from becoming unemployed, but is this a futile act?

Perhaps its better to not say anything because everything you say and do eventually find its way to those you want most not to hear about it, perhaps one of the big negatives of the internet and social media.

And…

It seems odd to me that you can’t have an opinion of your own, even if it is contrary to that of the organization you work for, and especially if their opinion has changed over time.  An opposing opinion, not delivered in a derogatory manner, would have the expectation of sparking healthy debate, but it doesn’t always end up like that.

I’m sure there are others out there that will disagree, and use the overused word, loyalty’.   Perhaps their mantra will be ‘keep your opinions to yourself’.

This, too, often crops up in personal relationships, and adds weight to the statement, ‘you can pick your friends but not your relatives’.

I’m told I have an opinion on everything, a statement delivered in a manner that suggests sarcasm.  Whether it’s true or not, isn’t the essence of free speech, working within the parameters of not inciting hate, bigotry, racism, or sexism, a fundamental right of anyone in a democracy?

Seems not.

There’s always someone out there, higher up the food chain, with an opinion of their own, obviously the right one, and who will not hesitate to silence yours.  But, isn’t it strange that in order to silence you, they have to use leverage, like your job, to get theirs across.

Well, my opinions are in my writing, and whether or not you agree with them or not, I’m sure you will let me know.  In a robust but respectful manner.

Unlike some, my door is always open.