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Monthly Fantasy Challenge for April.
You found an old copy of On a Pale Horse in your seat on the plane. Weirdly enough, it's leather-bound. You have nothing else to read. When you look up from the book after the plane has hit altitude, you realize you're flying through Hell, not to stay, but to report back. You see billboards and allure, but what's there behind the modernized version, and why the need to advertise? Winner is decided by likes, and will recieve a crisp $10.00 -Take us there...

Leather

One old book, leather-bound, occupying my plane seat.

Nothing else to do.

"On a Pale Horse", a title new to me. Enthralling me, I give my attention to the pale horse as opposed to my plain of existence. Sighing, relaxing, educating, not... connecting.

"How could I not be connecting? What is this disconnect?" I state, loud enough for the wonderful human being next to me to indulge my conversational plea through socially-enforced politeness. Once heard, one must indulge. I spoke loud enough to be heard.

I did not see the full disconnect until after I had announced my presence. My soul's windows burned at the strange sight before me. As if I were in a flying car and not an airplane, advertisements, lights, glitz, glamour - above an infinite, unending inferno of white noise and flame.

[REPORT]

"On a Pale Horse?"

[REPORT]

"I do dearly apologize, God, I haven't finished the book. Or I did, but the information is kept from me, even in my own mind."

[REPORT]

I see now I have many disconnects. The advertisements all flashed the word 'BACK', as if I had working knowledge of how to pilot.

[REPORT]

Have I been reported? Did my plane fail? Am I to be damned to Hell, on the basis of my homosexuality? I wondered as my brain struggled to piece the various simplistic pieces of data together in a way I could even begin to conceptualize.

[REPORT]

Oh - I was, I am a reporter. I used to be a grocery store clerk. Was that my life? Why am I disconnected? The advertisements seemed to be able to sense my emotional State, and adjusted accordingly. Needles, needles, needles, and needles. Slurs, of all sorts. Lights, coming from the fire, heading up to the bright light formed above my view. How did I know it was there?

[REPORT]

"God, I don't get it. Please." Tears of exasperation stung my dry eyes.

[REPORT]

"Please - I will finish the-" My hands reaching for the book, an invisible sensibility stops the move.

[REPORT]

"Please-" The wetness on my face begins to steam.

[REPORT HEAVEN]

"What? I report to Heaven? Now?" The stream of tears reflect my stream of consciousness.

[REPORT]

"I'm in Hell, I am a homosexual with transsexual tendencies."

[REPORT ERROR]

"Please, God. Or Satan."

[REPORT ACCURACY ENSURED]

As if it never happened, I'm in the safe, cool, air-conditioned cabin of a Boeing airplane. The wonderful woman sits next to me. I cannot help my eyes drifting to her chest, where a book is pressed against, heaving. The tears are still fresh on my face, though the red of exhaustion and embarrassment have fully left.

It's Stone Butch Blues. I went to Hell and saw my siblings making it to Heaven, on my goodwill, on my ignorant innocence. Her face is wet with tears, and I know which section of heartbreak she has arrived at. Was she with me? She turns to me and asks,

"I've never seen a woman look like you. In my mind, I look like you. Do we go to Hell for this?"

"No. All lesbians go to Heaven, just like everyone else. I swear on my eternal life."

They advertised my own truth to me. There will never be any sense in advertising a person's life as if another can own it.

[REPORT SUCCESSFUL]

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