Ignorance in Spain
My main character/protagonist is a male. My main character is an air traffic controller. An archetype present in my story is Antihero. A key object or symbol in my story is a gift box. My story will be set in Madrid. My story is about ignorance.
Meng walked down the Calle Tabla Mesa, towards the airport where he worked day in and day out. He sheepishly showed his pass to the security guard.
“Buenos Dios, Senior!” The security guard said with exuberance
“Buenos Dios.” He mumbled to the man, keeping his head down and walking quickly towards the control tower. He climbed the 47 stairs to the top and slipped into his chair. He put his head set on and prepared himself for another day of directing traffic in the sky. Being the only Oriental person in three hundred square miles of Madrid, he got a lot of strange looks as he worked during the day. It had always been his dream to leave China and to move to a land where they spoke only Spanish. In college while everyone was taking English to be able to conquer the business world, Meng Bin was taking Spanish with a tutor. Now he was living his dream, almost, thought things were great in Madrid and he loved his job, he never felt quite equal to his fellow employees. His boss Hugo always seemed to criticizes his work, and at lunch no one ever talked to him or even sat with him. Even on the street people would look at him awkwardly.
As he was daydreaming about his peculiar life his head set began to buzz,
“Mayday, Mayday, this is Flight 457 from Heathrow Airport, it appears that a bird flew into or left engine and now the engine is on failure, need assistance, I repeat need assistance, we’re all gonna die if someone down there doesn’t help us.”
Meng was nervous this was his first time alone during an emergency. He began to talk himself through this:
“Okay stay calm, all you have to do is have the pilot make a four degree starboard correction and land on runway four, then call the emergency vehicles, or is it emergency vehicles then the plane.”
He picked up the phone and began to dial the number for the emergency fire department; they seemed to be out.
So he decided to make the call to clear all available runways “This is air traffic control tower, all aircraft clear the runway, all aircraft clear the runway!” His voice was thunderous as it echoes throughout the empty halls of the airport.
“Now Flight 457, what is your heading and speed?”
“We are bearing 213 niner, at approximately 120 knots.”
“Alright you’re right on track for runway 5, now all you have to do is slow down to 80 knots before you hit the runway, Can you do it?”
“Engine 2 has just cut out due to over use and now we’re coming in like a gliding brick.”
“You need to perform an air brake maneuver, pull up hard and sudden on your rudder and lower your landing gear.”
“Alright, I’m only gonna have one shot at this.”
With that about 500 feet from the ground the pilot pulled up hard and the force of his plane and the air pressure slowed the plane down, it was a hard landing, but they were now out of harms way.
“Great job 457!”
“You too controller, I couldn’t have done it without your direction.”
The next day when Meng got to his post a gift box was sitting at his desk, he thought to himself that his heroic deed had not gone unnoticed. When he opened the box he discovered a dead bird with a note pinned to it. “Vas a China, o Tu tienes tus volandos cortado (Go back to China or you too will have your wings clipped.)”
Appalled by this apparent racism, discrimination, and inappreciation form his hard work, Meng did go back to China, and lived the normal boring live of a Chinese air traffic controller.
