This prompt was a tough one.  It took me more time than it should have to come up with a “coherent” story that wouldn’t require an exorbitant amount of explanation or plotting.  I’m actually rather proud of myself.  It’s not too bad.  Granted highly, HIGHLY, unlikely to ever happen, but that’s what makes it fiction.  Right?

A Year of Writing Prompts by Brian A Klems and Zachary Petit
January 7
High Time
“Write a story that takes place somewhere extremely high-space, an airplane, a tower-but that features two characters doing the lowest things for what they believe is a worthy cause.”

The earth fell away from the small two man airplane and turned into a quilt stretched out unevenly over the land. Ferris had studied the aerial night and day the past few months, studying landmarks to guide him on his journey. Sloshing noisily behind him was a concoction of his own making. It was a combination of pesticides one more potent than the last. Very soon he would drop it onto the largest pests of all, mankind.

The plot had hatched in the wee hours of the night, like all good ideas. At first he was hesitant and fearful to adopt his epiphany, but with each passing day he inundated himself with scientific studies of the harm man was doing to the earth. The sea levels were rising, the ice melting, and the climates were shifting from what they had been for millennia.

There were claims that this was the natural way of things. It was just the earth evolving into a new age as it had done ages ago when the earth cooled and it was an ice age. Regardless of their theories it was evident to Ferris that the statistics didn’t lie. The end was nigh if he did not do something about it.

For a moment he had contemplated a nuclear bomb, wiping out the major cities, but there was no easy way for him to even get a hold of that technology. If it was someone would have done it long ago. Ferris even contemplated getting someone to hack into the government mainframe and find out the launch codes. Yet again, he was dreaming bigger than he could actually achieve.

It wasn’t until one day, when he was driving down the San Joaquin Valley when he saw the agriculture plane, with it’s elongated pipe, pouring pestisides on some grapes, that it became crystal clear.

The only problem was the money. To buy a craft of that size it would take some hefty change and he wasn’t really rolling in it, while working at McDonald’s. It was good pay but not for taking down a blight on the earth. That’s when he came up with the idea of crowdfunding. The only question was, does he put his true purpose on the site or create a rosy fantasy? In the end he thought, no one would really believe he was building a weapon to exterminate human kind, so he put it up there. He figured, people would think it was a joke and donate for the laugh. Like the homeless that stand on the side of the road with the cardboard sign “let’s be honest, I just want beer.” In certain circumstances he knew people who deliberately gave the man change because of his humorous honesty.

Within two days of his scheduled end date he raised the money. Now, he just had to find a plane. Despite having nothing really to stimulate the mind, the San Joaquin Valley was the cradle of agriculture in California and many farmers were willing to sell an old plane to upgrade to a new one.

Equipped with a plane all that was left were the pesticides. Yet that was the easiest thing to acquire more than anything. Plus, spreading out his purchases over the course of the year raised no such suspicion. Although, just to cover his tracks, he created a fake agriculture company to buy the deadly chemicals.

Ferris wanted to go big for his first outing. He wanted to attack the largest of all the polluters in the nation and luckily it was just two hours south of home.

Los Angeles was a glimmering destroyer of the earth and the logical choice for destruction.

Ferris kept a steady altitude until he crossed over the Los Angeles National forest and when he got closer to la-la-land he began to descend. His mouth began to salivate as he thought of all the good he would do for the earth. If only he had gotten a group together and form a coalition to save the planet from ultimate destruction.

After this, he thought.

He descended dangerously low over north Hollywood where he pulled the lever and filtered the poison through the air. In time they would all pay for what they’ve done. The snooty low-lifes who call for action but fail to act themselves. They were hypocrites. He was doing something. He was making a difference.

He arched his way over toward Santa Monica. On this mid-July it would be an absolute guarantee that he would find sun worshippers at the beach. There he could claim so many lives for mother earth.

When the beige hem of the ocean came into view, with the people laying scattered like blisters he pulled the lever even further, pouring out as much as he could.

It was then that he realized the major flaw in his plan. His months of plotting had failed to realize that this would have to be a one-time thing. Soon he would run out of fuel. The likelihood of an airport allowing him to land was highly unlikely.

Panic ran through his body like ice in his veins.

I have to get home. He turned and pointed the propeller north, pouring the earth saving potion until every was spilled.

As his plane sailed gently over the mountains, guarding the valley a fighter jet screeched toward him, launching a missile and ending his flight in a cloud of black smoke.