I wanted to post something exuberant. So here goes:
Jason and Haya walked joyfully hand in hand over to the two hangars that stood some distance away from the farmhouse, near the horse paddock. When they arrived there he was awestruck. He had never seen anything as beautiful.
There, lit up by the morning sun, stood the two magnificent Willoughby crop dusters. Crop spraying aircraft are known throughout the world for their reliability and manoeuvrability. Of this genre, the Willoughbys' were the best and he was looking at two examples of the superb XS range.
"Krishna" was decorated in blue and green. "Radha" was in red and gold. Both had been kept in tiptop condition and looked spectacular in the golden rays. Haya stopped to look at Jason.
"Are you ready for some fun, my darling aviator? Come on. Let's not do crop dusting today. Forget about that. Let's just show our folks how to do a sky dance. We'll show them how Krishna and Radha can really dance."
Jason gave an amused laugh.
"Ah, I see it all now. Our courtship continues but high up there in the air. In cropdusters? Is that not just a little crazy?"
"No, my darling. It's up there where we met and it's up there where we are always meant to be, as soaring spirits."
"Are you sure that this is what you want to do?"
She gave him a smile but her eyes held a serious challenge. One that he could not ignore. Her words removed all doubts of what her intentions were.
"Come on, my darling. Let's just add a little spice to our life...and theirs."
She nodded her head towards her future parents-in-law sitting on the verandah.
"Do I get a kiss first?" he asked moving towars her.
She responded by putting her hands up in front of her face, in mock coyness, and then bursting out laughing.
"Sure...but only if you can catch me first, my sweetheart!"
She deftly avoided his attempted grasp and then, with the agility of a rock squirrel, climbed up into Radha's cockpit and began to do her start-up routine. Jason looked at her departing figure for some time then, shaking his head, walked over to Krishna and climbed nimbly into Krishna's cockpit. There he began his own start-up procedure.
After seeing the two walk off, Raj shook his one shoulder nonchalantly and then turned to Amita and asked if she wanted another slice of toast.
Raj and Amita were quietly chatting at the breakfast table, on the farmhouse verandah, when they first heard the roar of the aircraft. They saw them heading straight towards them, flying at rooftop height. Amita was so shocked that she dropped her cup.
Raj, totally ignoring the shattered pieces, uttered an oath as he rose to his feet. He was looking with great anxiety at the scene in front of him. To his great relief, at the last minute, the two aircraft zoomed up higher by a margin only just enough to clear the roof and then swung away in opposite directions to meet again high over the pasture.
The kitchen staff had heard the loud engine noise and had immediatly rushed outside to stare at the startling events above them. Workers in the fields stopped working and began to watch the aerial display. Some felt the exuberance of the moment and began laughing excitedly while others shook their heads in disbelief.
Both aircraft climbed vertically together with their wheels nearly touching and looked like eagles just before they loop back to let their wild mating occur during their plummeting fall towards earth.
These climbs were followed by half loops, after which the aircraft dived down only to level off and fly side by side. Once again, with magnificent roars, they rose together again to a great height. From there they spiralled down, like village dancers, one clockwise and the other anti-clockwise, before levelling off once again.
Then they passed over the farmhouse again, this time with wing tips almost touching. After swooping back again, with a joyful wiggling of their wings, they performed a grand finale by doing a few aerobatic sequences that were only possible because of the special capabilities and dexterity of the Willoughby crop dusters.
Soon afterwards, the two craft landed and a little later the two pilots could be seen walking back towards the farmhouse. They were holding hands and swinging their flying caps nonchalantly. All the workers who had been either laughing or struck dumn in awe, then burst into applause.
"So, Papa, do you think we'll be able to do your crop dusting?"
"After that display, I think that you two could do anything."
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Comments: 40
Thanks for sharing it...
You are a real maestro Fred dear and your imagination goes beyond words. Father sky must be very proud of you! I am !
Love you for such a wonderful story!
It's funny that you should say that. This part comes from a story meant for making into a movie,
Hi Biff, welcome to my world. Yeea one does slow down a bit but in a crop duster, the aircraft does all the work. Thanks for the visit.
I chose Krishna and Radha specially. Do you remember Amir Khan and Gauri dancing as them in Lagaan? Their dance led to this story. It's one of my favourite scenes in any movie.
I'm so glad that you enjoyed it.
If that's what you saw and felt then there's hope for me as a writer.
It's my secret aim to be as vivid as van Gogh. So my role model is a painter rather than some writer. I hope that it's not a too way out idea.
Thank you for your words dear.
I would love to have a copy of this book when it finally comes out.
Needs no crit, other than a couple of typing slips here and there.
Of course you would know the background to this ancient story. The sometimes playful romance. The romance of romances.
Somehow you knew that this is a story of the skies. This part is taken from a book, written by me, called Maharani of the Skies. It' has love scenes played out in various ways up among the clouds.
I'll dedicate this to father sky. The real hero of my story.
Thank you for the wonderful things that you wrote. I treasure them dear.
This is no "whadya doing babe" story. It's about love ar a higher level. It's about passion driving mortal souls to heights previously thought unachievable.
I think you demand class in a relationship and I can but agree with you. But if there is elegance that does not imply that the passion is lessened. No.
And of course, you know that. I salute you.
Hi Katherine. Yesss. This was a pure flight of fancy. Why should love making always follow the same routine? I'm happy that you liked it. Thank you.
Hi Carol. This is how it happened. Amita dropped the cup. Raj leapt to his feet, ignoring the shattered pieces, as he, horrified, saw the oncoming aircraft.
I've changed the text. I hope that it's clearer now.
Thanks for the help.
Yes I love them too. I've seen them here often and once, in Arizona, we stopped the car for an hour and watched a great pilot show us what low flying really is.
May I ask you, very kindly, to give me an indication of what a typical pre-flight check up is in brief. l'd really appreciate that.
I wanted to draw the reader right into the story. I'm so glad that you said what you did. That's given me a boost.
You'll get a copy of the mss flying towards you...but not in a crop duster, I'm afraid.
Please note that the word "eventually" has been taken out.
Thanks for your ideas.
The writing is consistently strong throughout, although it seems almost too well staged, Fred, without enough real tension between the characters. Too much agreement, as it were, without conflict. But this may just be because the scene is ripped out of context, and hence I am judging what is essentially a ´comic relief ´scene in an ongoing romantic drama or melodrama.
Now, I´m going to try to help you in the best way, so please, realize this is coming from a thoughtful and caring place in my heart, Fred.
As an editor, I take out my red pencil for your excessive use of adverbs and adjectives, my friend, most of which are not necessary since they simply manipulate the reader to go somewhere they would naturally arrive at anyway, like big billboards right in front of the hamburger joint, obscuring the view. Some egregious examples:
you can use either one or two of nimbly, deftly, nonchalantly , etc. When you rewrite, you have to look for patterns of excessive modifiers where you were trying too hard to push or indicate to the reader. It´s like a playwright giving too many stage directions to the director. In the 19th Century realist novel it was done a lot, but since then people have read more selectively, and a judiciously employed adjective or adverb from time to time is great, just not cluster of them coming all at once.
Also, cut excessive indicating adjectives
incredible manoeuvrability---cut incredible
utter disbelief utter
superb dexterity superb
spontaneous applause spontaneous (in the context it´s clear it´s unforced)
etc.
Try not to editorialize, Fred. Here is an example of commenting on your own story instead of letting the reader have their own interpretation:
¨They knew that they had just seen a glorious celebration of love.¨
The less you guide the reader, the more your writing is fresh, and authentic to the character´s motivations and the unexpected colliding. The more you tell the reader how they should feel, the less they feel the characters´own emotional responses to the outcomes of their actions.
Good work, and I hope you take everything I say as simply one reader´s pt of view who could perhaps be wrong, but who really wants you for the benefit of many readers (and yourself as a world class writer, Fred!) to get it RIGHT.
I'm always very happy to see your name especially as your name popped into my mind today.
I saw them too not too far from where you saw them. They really earn their wages the hard way. I'm sorry about that man's death but what you said has relevance to my story.
This Haya was a few years earlier a great aerobatics pilot and she crashed during an air race while flying under powerlines. She was trying to benefit from the socalled "ground effect" where pressure reflections from the earth to the aircraft give a few extra knots.
Thank you for your visit.
Thank you for you invaluable comments. You jerked me upright and that's what I needed. Show don't tell, show don't tell. show don't tell...let me write that a 100 times.
You've got the picture. This part IS comic relief at the end of a novel where both characters go thru hell and are kept apart by twists of fate.
The points you make are so valid that I hope many young writers study your comment.
I'm going to react to every point that you made...but it's 2 am here and so that'll happen tomorrow.
You've shown here what the true spirit of Gather is to me and others and I applaud you for that. Muchas Gracios.
I don't think that John instructs. That would not be his way. I accepted his suggestions very gratefully. I had made some serious errors in this particular article but they've all been corrected now and it reads really great now.
Thank you John.
That was such an informative piece of yours. Hell I owe you one.
Although crop dusters are biplanes, I think that they are of a very robust construction. How they did what I saw them do without breaking off pieces, I'll never know.
I don't think that I can include everything that you told me in my story but I'll do my best...and store the rest for future use.
Oh I know the Luscombe. That was a powerful looking plane that.
Raven, I wish you great soaring way up in the sky...wait.. I know what I can do...I'll send you a copy of the mss.
You can read in it about the Czech built Z Lin 50 that they used here, a year or two ago, for extreme aerobatics. Do you know that impossible Lamcovak manouvre? Well. they could do it with this speciality aircraft.
Chocks away...hahaha.
If I got you on the edge of your seat then you've made my day.
Yesss...it's made for a scene in a movie, isn't it? Well I'm glad that you saw it that way.
Oh oh may it be made into a movie one day!!! Go well dear.
It's my most disturbing dream. I KNOW that I should fly. It's in my genes and so I have to do it. I've done my other dream ...sailing. So that's an itch that's settled.
I know what you mean about a fear of flying. I don't have it but I know people that do. You're doing the right thing. Spitting in the face of the tiger.
I think that the Evektor has a high bubble of a canopy so that you can see in all directions. Wow, that must be something.
Thank you again for that help.
this was a great read. I could close my eyes and visualize the aerobatics.
Greetings after a long absence . . . .