Break on Through (or Hope You Don't)
Perhaps fittingly, we arrived before we did.
"I'm looking for Poisson Ave." I said to the gas station attendant.
"It's right behind you. Look. Back there, large tower. The thing that says 'SkyVenture' on it." I looked where he was pointing, which was, as he noted, right behind us, back from where we'd came not two seconds before.
"Thanks." And thus began my day over fulfilling childhood dreams. Time travel in some sort of primitive teleportation device, called, in our case, a "Ford Escape" was the first fulfilled dream. Of course, I didn't realize that at first. At the time, I was only thinking, "SkyVenture"? She brought me to a venture capital firm? What odd offices. And why are they based in Nashua? Maybe that shows where my head was at.
So we piled back into the car, low fuel light no longer beckoning, whiningly, from the bottom right corner of my vision. We eased back into traffic, eased somewhat less easily into the far left lane, and then swung wildly around the next intersection in the best approximation of a U-turn in a place in which you're not entirely sure you can legally be doing U-turns, and worked our way back down Poisson Avenue, which ended at this kind of Lego-ish looking building.
As we were running, even with the benefit of newly discovered time travel, about twenty five minutes late, I was pushed out of the car and told to run, "run for the door!" like I was in danger of being shot by snipers on the roof of the Lego house.
And so I ran, diving into the desk, and, while the woman was getting some paperwork for me, I looked up to the second floor...
There were three people, dressed in grey and purple jump suits and helmets, looking, for all the world, like bugs trapped in some little kid's glass jar. Only the kid was shaking the jar very hard, the way his parents had told him not to a dozen times, at least, and finally just gave up, thinking that, "oh well, they're only bugs, anyway." The people were splayed out, arms and legs seemingly akimbo, being watched by one bug, err, person, who'd managed to stay composed, clinging, upright, to the glass, and were four feet off the ground. It was at this point that I guessed that it was not, in fact, a venture capital firm. Or a lot more fun one than I'd ever seen.
The last thing the woman at the desk said to me was, as she stamped my hand, "You have four minutes, right?" To which I said, "Uhh. 'K."
And then I was upstairs.
And then, I was greeted by someone looking, for all the world, like a snowboarding or surfing instructor. I don't mean this in a derogatory way. I mean this in a, "Hey, guys, let's go chill over here in this classroom and have a chat," kind of way. Which is what he said to myself and another woman, who, at first glance, I'd thought was being consoled by her friend, as the two of them were leaning against the glass railing looking down over the first floor and out the giant glass front of the building.
"[Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe, and Everything] has this to say on the subject of flying.
There is an art, it says, or rather a knack to flying.
The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
The guy (who's name I've forgotten, and if I were doing this properly would ring up SkyVenture and ask for the instructor's name, to properly document the experience, for a more realistic feel, but all I can think of, to this day, when I think of that experience is: WHOOOOOA! I'm FLYING!), explained to us that we'd be entering New Hampshire's own recirculated wind tunnel, into which we'd be going in a couple of seconds, donning a fashionable jump suit, helmet, goggles, ear plugs, knee pads, and elbow pads, not necessarily in that order. He went through the hand signals: two fingers bent meant bend your legs, two fingers straight meant to straighten your legs, finger jammed up under his chin meant you were meant to look up, shaka symbol meant to relax, if he yanked on your arm, it meant you needed to keep them out. Or loosen them up. Or pull them in more. Or stop trying to swim. "Most people liken it to swimming, so they move their arms and legs like they're swimming." This is a bad thing. Because 1) you are not swimming. You are floating on top of a lot of air being whooshed up at you by massive fans. 2) If you were swimming, you'd be doing the equivalent of swimming laps in the kiddie pool, since you only had (and I'm guessing here) twelve feet in diameter to swim in. He would also yank on your legs, if need be, with very similar signals. To all of this, I grinned stupidly.
We came out of our classroom as the other people in the chamber were exiting. We moved to the jump suit dispensing area, where we squeezed ear plugs into our ears, which reminded me, vaguely of the scene in the Wrath of Khan where they insert those worm-like things in the guys ears and he winds up dying later in the film. This is, so far as I recall, the only Star Trek film I've ever seen, and I have no desire to see another, thanks to that scene. I also had trouble eating sausages after that, as they always seemed to have little things in them that looked suspiciously like the mind-eating creatures. Anyway, so I put the ear plugs in. And then I put the goggles on. And then the helmet. My eighteen month old son toddled over, looking worried for me. Maybe he was concerned I was thinking of going outside, looking like I did. I threw on the sneakers they provided, the jumpsuit, knee pads and elbow pads, and he just toddled closer and hugged my legs. I know this one is going to come back to bite us when he's a teenager.
I left my family at the door of the chamber, as we were ushered in through a glass airlock door, into a small room around one half of the tunnel - glass and family on one side, glass and tunnel with a mesh floor on the other. With a hand signal from the Guy (whom Im going to refer to as Jim, even though that's not his name, for the sake of these asides I feel I always have to chuck in), Jim, the wind machines started. I was about to be Tyra Banks. Only you couldn't see my hair blowing in the wind. And you couldn't see me working the camera. And, umm. That's it. Otherwise, I was just like Tyra Banks. Or about to be.
The wind was not confined to the tunnel, it got quite windy in the antechamber, as well. And then, it was my turn. I stood at the doorway, as instructed. I looked up, and put my arms in front of my chest, and hands under my chin, as instructed. And then I fell forward, into the tunnel, as instructed.
To be continued...
disclaimer:
For those of you who also would like to try flying in a claustrophobia-inducing little glass tube and have spit drip up your face, you should get on up to SkyVenture, in Nashua, NH. It is totally, 100%, 1,000% worth it. This is not a paid advertisement.
These are just the words of a man who has flown.
Also, you'll note, if you are the sort to note these kinds of things, that Further Fenway Fiction now has a publish date, and is appearing on both Amazon.com and Sane Magazine's very own bookshop (hosted on Amazon). the 25th of July, 2007. Mark it on your calendars, get a forehead tattoo, buy a stamp with the date imprinted on it -- just remember that date. Because your beloved Sane Magazine founder has another story in it, this time with a guy named Bellyitcher in it. Which, in and of itself, should be enough to get you to buy it.
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