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“Yeah, I’m out,” she retorted bluntly. “Oh-for-three buddy… I don’t like any of the above.”
“Oh really?” he asked, surprised, and smiling at her. “You would have hated growing up in the bayou. I remember one time as a boy I was fishing with my friend, and we had taken his dad’s skiff out on the waterways… only to have a snake fall into the boat…”
“Nope. You would have lost me right there,” she interrupted, laughing… and loving the fact that he was enjoying their conversation, cutting up with her.
“I was not a happy camper,” John joked, still laughing as he spoke. “I took the oar, shoved at the snake, only to push it directly towards Remy – who screamed bloody murder – then picked up the snake with his bare hands as I swung the oar at it like a baseball bat to send the creature flying into the water…”
“Oh my gosh,” she gaped in disbelief, picturing the whole thing, and realizing she would have screamed, too.
“His hand was bruised for several days where I made contact with the oar,” John admitted sheepishly, grinning. “But that snake was not hitching a ride with us either… so it had to go, and I sure didn’t want to miss when I hit it.”
“I guess not,” she chuckled, and spotted a massive lake below. “What’s that?”
“Lake Ponchatrain,” he replied distractedly, and released her hand for a moment, reaching for the radio… causing a flurry of talking to suddenly appear as he held up a finger to his lips.
She listened in disbelief as it sounded like a bunch of jargon to her, voices talking over each other, several muted or garbled, before John was suddenly looking out the windows… before bringing the plane a little lower.
He reached for the radio again and spoke.
“Just making sure we aren’t in the path of another flight when we are this close to a larger airport. I wanted to see where everyone else was at…”
“I appreciate that… more than you know,” she admitted, feeling a little overwhelmed and dumbstruck that he was able to make sense of what was being said. It was garbage to her and sounded like a lot of ‘trash talking’between two people holding tin cans connected by yarn.
“Do we have far?”
“We’re just about here…”
The plane descended a little lower and Emily felt like they could reach right out the window and touch the treetops. She could see the brackish waters below, covered in almost neon green plants that resembled pond scum, or what she imagined it would look like. There were trees growing right out of the waters and some of them had roots that almost looked like fingers extended into the water.
“Here… let me get us a little closer…”
“We’re plenty close to the trees, John…” she balked, and the plane circled around, flying closer still – only to see large trees heavily laden with greyish moss that hung from the branches like cobwebs or mist.
“We’re in luck…” he said softly, but the words didn’t really need to be said aloud as in that split second, she saw the sun began to dip slightly beyond the horizon.
The moment that it crossed that mystical line on the horizon, the entire scenery changed. Shadows began to fall across the trees and the waters, as if the world was silhouetted against the bright orange sky.
“I’ll circle again…” he whispered absently.
Emily pulled out her cell phone, taking photos of the majestic scenery – before turning to John. His face was glowing in the sunset as he stared at the world below, angling the plane, his eyes searching the area below.
She took a photo of him, sitting there, flying the plane, and looking out the window… he was so breathtakingly beautiful she knew she would never forget this moment.
“If you are gonna take photos of me,” John said without moving as he flew steadily, it’s only fair that I get to take one of you… or we take one together.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, mortified at being caught.
“You’re too pretty to be sitting there and not have me notice,” he said openly, still not looking up. “If you look out my window, you’ll see a strange looking, dilapidated building with a trailer on top…”
“Right there? The avocado-colored one…?”
“Yep.”
“Was that where you grew up?”
“Yep.”
His voice was tight and full of emotion, but the tone was clipped, telling her so much in that single word. Something had driven him away, and he didn’t want to talk about it, but that boy deep inside of him had wanted to see his home once again.
