ted klein Read online

  Magic Carpet

  The 747 was almost full; the final boarders were straggling down the aisle while muzak speakers piped “Up, Up, and Away.” Cursing, McAllister checked his watch. They’d probably be at least half an hour late getting into Los Angeles, and he already had two appointments lined up for this evening.

  He cursed again when, looking up, he saw the stewardess shepherding a small boy down the aisle. They were coming towards him; she’d spotted the empty seat to his right, next to the window, on which his attaché case and raincoat lay piled.

  “This looks like a nice seat,” the stewardess was saying, smiling at the boy with professional tenderness. “Right next to this nice man.” She stood towering above McAllister, then leaned past him and snatched the raincoat from the seat. Her face, he saw, had become as empty of expression as a clock’s. “I’m afraid we don’t allow anything left on the seats, sir,” she recited. “It interferes with flight safety regulations. I’ll just hang this coat in front for you, and you can put your briefcase beneath the seat.”

  McAllister did as he was told.

  The boy eyed him nervously. “This is Mickey,” said the stewardess, placing a hand on his shoulder and gently sliding him past McAllister. “It’s his first time on an airplane, so maybe you can help him a little with his seatbelt and things.”

  McAllister forced himself to smile, already computing the working time this boy was going to cost him. Mickey looked to be around six or seven, but McAllister had always been a bad judge of children’s ages. He wondered if the boy was old enough to read; perhaps the stewardess could interest him in a magazine...

  But she was already retreating down the aisle with his raincoat, leaving the two of them to make friends.

  “Hi, Mickey,” said McAllister, casting another glance at his watch. “So you’re on your way to Los Angeles, eh?”

  The boy nodded. “To see Daddy,” he said. “He went out there last week. Grandpop put me on the plane.” His voice was high, trembly, obviously nervous.

  “Your first flight, eh?”

  The boy nodded and remained silent, as if expecting further interrogation.

  McAllister obliged. “How old are you?” he asked.

  “Six,” said the boy. And then, with evident pride: “But I’m already through first grade.”

  “Well, that’s nice.” McAllister smiled. “I guess that means you’ve already—” But at that moment the stewardess launched into her lecture on safety: “In the event of pressure loss, oxygen masks will drop automatically from the containers to the right of the cabin lights...” and, while the boy listened with rapt attention and wide, fearful eyes, McAllister settled back, removed his notebook, and opened it to his price lists. He’d have dozens of model numbers and specifications to memorize in the hours ahead.

  “Passengers should familiarize themselves with the emergency exits,” the stewardess continued, laying aside the oxygen mask and holding up a plastic-coated card. “There are seven on each side of the airplane, two in the rear, and two in the front. In the seat pack in front of you you will find a card showing the location of each of these exits...” Her voice sounded pre-recorded. McAllister glanced at the boy next to him before returning to his lists; Mickey was studying the card with the intensity of a doomed man, looking up to check the location of every exit.

  “Mister?” the boy said suddenly. “Which is ours?” He waved the card at McAllister.

  “Ours? Oh, you mean the exit. I think there’s one a couple of seats in front of us,” McAllister answered. “But don’t you worry about a thing. You’ll never need it.” He laid aside his notebook and began fastening his seatbelt; the great jet had begun to move, the whine inside the cabin growing louder, more insistent. “Believe me, son, you’re safer here than on the ground. I know, I’ve ridden in these things thousands of times and I’ve never had any trouble. So just sit back and enjoy the view.” He pulled the small fibre-glass curtain all the way back from the window, then leaned over to help Mickey with his seatbelt.

  The plane rolled sluggishly onto the runway and paused there, waiting its turn. Suddenly, with an almost deafening roar, it began to move, engines racing, picking up speed. McAllister let himself enjoy the sensation of being pressed back in his seat; he would normally be immersed in work by this time, but today, with the boy beside him, he allowed himself the childish sense of adventure. Looking over at his companion, he was pleased to see the boy’s eyes were wide with excitement.

  “Just like Flash Gordon, eh?” said McAllister.

  The boy nodded, smiling uncertainly. “Wow!” he gasped. Then, with a touch of panic: “When’s it gonna stop?”

  “Any second now,” McAllister reassured him. “Whoops! Here we go!” The plane had given a little leap from the ground and now, tilted skyward, it was speeding toward the clouds. “See? We’re off the ground now. Look.”

  The boy pressed his face to the window and gazed at the airport vanishing below. Already thin wisps of cloud were obscuring the view.

  “Looks pretty nice from up here, doesn’t it?” said McAllister. Riding with the boy was more fun than he’d expected. “I remember the first time I ever went up, we passed over—”

  “Gee, it’s not like I thought,” the boy interrupted. “It’s too hard to see.”

  “What’s the matter?” asked McAllister. “Clouds got in the way? You can’t help but have a few clouds. That just shows how high we are.”

  “I thought I’d be able to see better,” said the boy. ”I thought it would be like a magic carpet, and I’d be able to look down and see all the towns, and the people like ants... But with these little windows, I can’t see anything.”

  McAllister smiled indulgently, “Well, kid, I’m afraid little windows are the best we can do. Unless you can find yourself a magic carpet some place—and when it comes to that, I’m afraid you’re out of luck.”

  “You mean there’s no such thing?” asked Mickey, as if he already knew the answer. Perhaps he’d already been through this with his father.

  “I’m afraid not,” said McAllister. At the boy’s look of disappointment, he reconsidered. “Oh, it’s possible that maybe, once upon a time, there were things like that.” He paused. “Do you know where India is?”

  The boy nodded. “That’s what Columbus was looking for,” he said.

  McAllister brightened. “Well, aren’t you smart! That’s exactly right. And in India there used to be stories about magic carpets, and rope tricks... Have you ever heard of the Indian Rope Trick? A man makes a rope stand straight up in the air, like a flagpole, without tying it onto anything, and then his assistant climbs right up to the top. There used to be stories about things like that, but there’s not a shred of proof. Western scientists spent years trying to find a rope that really stood up, and a carpet that really flew... but they never found one.” He shrugged. “They think it’s just some kind of mass hypnosis. You know, the magician casts a spell on everyone in the crowd, and they think they’re seeing things that really aren’t there.”

  The boy looked slightly crestfallen. “You mean it’s all a trick?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid so. Or else... well, the Indians themselves argue differently. They say carpets can fly, and ropes can stick straight up in the air, just so long as everyone believes they can. You might say they’re held up by the faith of the crowd. And then along comes a Westerner who doesn’t believe such things, and poof!, the spell is broken and they don’t work any more.”

  The boy looked confused; McAllister attempted to explain. “It’s like an unbeliever breaking a séance,” he said. “Some people claim they can join hands and talk to spirits, but only when everyone in the room believes they can do it. When there’s a doubter in the room, a sceptic, the whole thing falls apart. It’s a pretty convenient way of getting yourself off the hook when the trick doesn’t work.”

  He wondered if all this was over Mickey’s head, for the boy seemed to have lost interest; he’d turned away, and was
staring out the window at the broad expanse of wing.

  “And this plane,” he asked suddenly, “it works by magic, too?”

  Apparently the boy hadn’t understood a thing he’d been saying. McAllister searched his memory for relics of high school physics. It had been a long time.

  “No,” he said, “it’s not magic, it’s... it’s scientific. You see those big engines out there?” He pointed toward the wing. “Well, air comes in the front, and gets forced out the back a whole lot faster, and that pushes the plane forward.” He recalled a demonstration he’d seen on TV. “It’s like when you let go of a balloon, it flies around because there’s air being pushed out the back. Every action has, um, an equal and—”

  “You mean that’s how this plane stays up?” the boy interrupted. “Like a balloon?”

  “Oh, no, no, you’re thinking of helium-filled balloons, like at the circus. No, the reason this plane stays up is because of the shape of the wing. You see, the wing is flat on the bottom and curved on the top, so it takes longer for the air to pass over the top. And that creates... well, something called a vacuum.”

  “You mean like a vacuum cleaner?”

  “Yeah, that’s right, something like that. It sucks the plane up into the air.”

  “Where is it, then?” asked Mickey.

  “Where’s what?”

  “The vacuum cleaner!”

  McAllister wondered if he was being baited. Controlling his patience, he began again. “There’s nothing you can actually see. It’s the way the plane is built, that’s all. The shape of the god-damned wings.”

  He immediately regretted that, but the boy appeared not to have heard. He was still clutching the plastic card, peering intently at the schematic drawing of the jet, his lips moving as he read to himself. After a moment he looked up. “But it says here this plane weighs sixteen hundred... no, sixteen thousand tons. That’s an awful lot for those wings to hold up.”

  “Believe me, kid,” said McAllister, “everything’s been measured very very carefully. That’s what they have scientists for, to take care of things like that.”

  “But those wings,” the boy persisted. “They’re metal, too?”

  McAllister nodded. “They’re metal, too.”

  “And they can still hold up this plane?” He looked highly dubious. “It sure sounds like magic to me.”

  McAllister smiled and picked up his notebook. “Take my word for it, kid,” he said.

  The boy nodded — but McAllister suspected it was more out of politeness than conviction. He returned to studying the card.

  McAllister opened his notebook and ran his eye over the figures. They looked long and monotonous; he would never memorize them all, it would take hours... He shook his head. He had to admit, the kid had a point. Here they were, sixteen thousand tons of steel flying miles above the ground, with nothing but air to keep them up... It really did seem impossible, now that he thought about it.

  He looked out the window, at the tons of steel that formed the airplane’s wing.

  McAllister frowned and shut his notebook. What if the kid was right? What if it was magic that held this thing up? What if this plane were flying on faith — the accumulated faith of everyone on board? Just like a magic carpet...

  And what if one person on board—a person like him—suddenly stopped believing? Suddenly lost his faith? Wouldn’t that break the circle?

  He realized, suddenly, that it was true. It really was like a magic carpet. When you believed in them, they flew.

  And when you stopped believing. . .

  He screamed as, with a sudden, stomach-wrenching cessation of movement, the plane faltered, stopped dead, and fell towards the earth.