Living in the Air

What are these four siblings going to do now? That’s what they want to know.

Living in the Air

A Short Story

Written By

Donald A. Johnson

     Sally Jackson, the youngest of the four Jacksons, turns off her old satellite cell phone. She walks out of their airport offices into the living room of their office/house where her two brothers and older sister are sitting around watching a television, reading a book, and almost falling asleep. “We have another customer.”

     “A father and a young teenage daughter, about thirteen, need to get back home a week earlier than their vacation with his mother-in-law because of his job. His wife and another daughter, around eleven is still staying here.”

     “The wife and daughter will drive back home after their vacation, but the husband and daughter need to get back home right away. They should be here in about an hour.”

     Gregory, Brandon, and Victoria watch Sally as she walks around their living room while she talks to them. “Who among us is the next one to take them home?”

     “I think I am,” answers Brandon after he, Gregory, and Victoria look at each other. Then they all look at Sally, who is now looking at the living room window. Brandon joins Sally. They can barely see their three airplanes and the old offices that they no longer use.

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      Brandon enters their living room with a big smile on his face and a bank receipt in his hands. “What are you smiling about?” Gregory asks while watching TV.

     “What I want to know is what that is in your hand,” says Victoria after glancing up from the book she has been reading lately. “It looks like a bank receipt.”

     “That’s because it is a bank receipt,” says Brandon. “It’s also why I’m smiling. After I dropped off our father and daughter, I was about to head back home when I overheard another potential customer. A group of six got bumped from their flight home for some reason. I offered to take them home in our airplane.”

     Brandon gives the bank receipt to Sally. Sally looks at it and also starts smiling. Her eyes also appear to get a lot bigger. “Where did you take them? Was it to the moon?”

     “They were willing to pay almost anything to get back home as soon as they could, and I took advantage of it. After all, we need the money. Besides, I didn’t have to go out of my way to do it. It was on my way home anyway.”

#

     Gregory returns to their office/house after getting the mail. He places most of it on a table by the front door, but he opens one of them. The look on his face says it’s not good news. “We have a big problem,” he tells the others after he goes into their living room.

     Brandon, Victoria, and Sally each look at what Gregory is waving in his hand, snatching it from each other before they can hardly have the time to look at it. “What’s our big problem?” Victoria asks. “I don’t see any problems. It’s just our latest bank statement.”

     “Look at the total at the bottom of it,” says Gregory. “We are almost out of our inheritance, which we got after our parents’ mysterious death.”

     “Don’t remind me about what happened to our parents,” says Sally. “After all, it was about ten years ago when they left us this airport and our inheritance.”

     Victoria sits down with the rest of her siblings after snatching the bank statement back from Gregory. “I don’t like being reminded about that either. Especially since three of us were only a late tween, an early teen, and a middle teen when it happened.”

#

     The four siblings are sitting around their dining room table, but they aren’t only eating their dinner. They are also talking about their financial problems. “What are we going to do after we run out of our inheritance?”

     “You have been asking us that question for the last two weeks, and we have been giving you the same answers.” Sally finishes eating her dinner while she says this to Gregory.

     “I know that you have been telling me the same things, but I don’t like any of them,” says Gregory. “That’s why I keep asking this question.”

     Gregory is the last one to finish eating his dinner. Brandon, Victoria, and Sally are just sitting around the dinner table talking to him about their financial problems. “The only thing I like is us selling this business and us moving away from here, and I don’t want to do that.”

     “Especially the part about us moving away from here,” continues Gregory. “I don’t think we can stay together if we do that, and I don’t want that to happen. Just before our parents died, I promised them I would keep us together if something happened to them.”

#

     “There is only one way we can continue our business after we run out of our inheritance,” says Brandon while walking around their living room. Gregory and Sally are doing other things there, but they keep looking at him.

     Victoria is trying to take a nap, but her head movement says she is also keeping her closed eyes on Brandon. “I would rather take the chance of breaking up the family than do business with someone like that.”

     “I agree with Victoria,” says Sally. “We may have the best location for this kind of a business, but we will be risking our lives if we do this. I’m not worried about the feds finding out what we are doing, but I am about what our new customers will do if we don’t do it. I know that they will kill us like they did our parents.

     Brandon stops walking. He looks at a still closed-eyed Sally. Gregory and Victoria also look at her. “We all know that they have killed our parents, but I don’t think they will kill us as long as we do what we are supposed to do.”

###

     “That’s why we have no choice but to accept them as our new customers.” Gregory and his three siblings are in the office of their office/house. “If we don’t do what they tell us to do, we will end up like our parents.”

     “I’m the oldest Jackson here,” continues Gregory. “So, I’ll be the only one who goes to get these shipments and bring them back here. If anyone is going to take the blame if the feds show up, it will be me and only me.”

     The four siblings are sitting around the living room, but they aren’t doing anything but just sitting there. “How long before our newest customers show up here?” Sally asks.

     “Don’t you mean that they are our only customers now?” Brandon asks.

     “Who cares what it means?” answers Victoria. “All that I care about is that I don’t want to do this.”

     The four siblings get up and look out their living room window after they hear a familiar sound of an airplane. “I don’t like it either, but we have no choice,” says Gregory. “Besides, it looks like our new customers are here.”

#

     “We have just been contacted by Gregory,” says Victoria to Brandon and Sally after she enters the living room. “He should be returning here with another shipment in about fifteen minutes.”

     “Tell him to drop the latest shipment at the old office that is next to our two other airplanes,” says Brandon. “Our customers will pick it up in about an hour.”

     Victoria doesn’t start to leave there to tell Gregory what Brandon has asked her to do. Instead, she starts to smile. “I have already contacted Gregory about that, but I didn’t have to do that. After all, this isn’t the first shipment we have brought in for these customers.”

     “The only thing that changes is when they will be here to pick it up,” continues Victoria. “They keep changing the time they pick it up to avoid being caught doing it.”

     Brandon and Sally join Victoria as she looks out the window of their office/house at an airplane that is about to land there. After Gregory lands their airplane there, he stops right next to the old office. Gregory then starts unloading their latest shipment. It takes him about an hour to finish unloading this shipment.

#

     “Is that our new customers coming to pick up their latest shipment?” Sally asks after pointing out their living room window. The other three siblings are also looking out of this window.

     “I don’t think it’s them,” answers Brandon. “It looks like it’s some feds heading toward us.”

     The other three siblings look at Gregory. “What are we going to do?” All three of them ask this question in one way or another.

     “We aren’t going to do anything,” says Gregory. “I’m the only one who will take the blame for what we have been doing for the last nine months.”

     Before they look at Gregory, the other three siblings look at each other. It’s Brandon who speaks for the three of them. “We have been talking about this, and we disagree with you. If you are arrested by the feds, all of us will be arrested by them.”

     A few minutes later, about ten feds enter the Jacksons’ office/house. The four siblings are still looking out their living room window when they can barely see about another ten feds entering the old office where the latest shipment is. In a few minutes, all four of them are arrested.

#

     Gregory, Brandon, and Sally are looking out of their living room window. Their hands are tied behind their backs by Zip Cuffs. Two feds are just out of sight of whoever may be looking at them. Gregory, Brandon, and Sally can see at least one person watching them.

     “Have they seen you?” one of the feds asks.

     “I think they have,” says Gregory without barely moving his lips. He continues looking out their window. “It doesn’t look like they know you are here.”

     Just then, Victoria enters. Zip Cuffs also bind her hands behind her back. She walks up to stand beside her siblings. Her two feds go over next to her, join the other two besides her and her siblings. “I got contacted by our new customers. They will be here in about fifteen minutes.”

     “Do they expect you to just stand here so they can see you while they pick up their shipment?” One of the new feds who joined the others asks.

     “They always do,” answers Brandon without having to move his lips too much. “Several of our new customers keep their eyes on us while the others pick up their shipment.”

#

     The two feds that are closest to the windows, through which the four siblings are looking out, also peek out of them. Using the two siblings closest to them to cover what they are doing. Like the four siblings, they can see that their new customers have entered the old office.

     One of the feds looking out the window stops looking. He speaks into a hand radio. “They are almost in the old office. Once they are all in there, arrest them by any means necessary. If you can’t arrest them, kill them.”

     “After all, they are going to try to kill you first,” continues this fed. “They will do whatever it takes to stop you from stopping them.”

     Just then, they start hearing gunfire. Gunfire that gets louder by the second. A few minutes later, there is a large explosion that not only destroys the old office but also destroys the four siblings’ airplanes. “It looks like we are out of business, whether we like it or not. It’s a good thing we are going into WITSEC.”

     “I think it’s safe to take these Zip Cuffs off us now,” continues Gregory. “It doesn’t look like there are any new customers here to find out we have also been arrested.”

Word Count = 1,976