Four
As I limp away from the wreck site, someone beckons me to join them at the bar. More than happy to oblige, I adjust my bow-tie, flick away an invisible speck of dirt from my lapel and try to pick up the pace.
This is what I’ve been looking for all day: a dark bar crafted from weathered mahogany, a discreet barman clad in white, stools made of stainless steel and genuine leather. Relieved, I grab the iced daiquiri in front of me and glance back at the wreckage of the paraglider. As fate would have it, the trees turned out to be perfect for an emergency landing: their trunks highly malleable, leaves and branches soft and rubbery. There's damage to this body, no doubt about it, but it could have been a lot worse.
Using olives, pickled onions and brightly colored cocktail umbrellas, the barman tries to reenact a well known tropical depression from -97 in front of me. I snatch a green olive with pimentos and eat while he draws me a diagram, an outline in black and white of the relative benefits of hurricanes over typhoons. But when he asks me to assess the amount of neglectable debris being transferred between zones D5 and C1 each season, all I can do is nod vaguely and point to my empty glass, something that’s clearly not appreciated.
His face is suddenly very close, pupils wide and black, voice too loud. I'm acutely aware of the temperature dropping and dark clouds approaching.
“Time for you to leave, little one. You’re broken, and the doctor will see you now.”