Billboard Sky

Chapter Sixteen; Hover Shoe Ramp, 12:34 p.m.

Ed had gotten there early. Standing by the hovershoe ramps, he listened to the quiet struggles of air and magnetic pulses from beneath the feet of the teenagers that wore all white clothes with the black hovershoes. Even their hair was dyed white, giving them all the appearance of floating albinos. Ed wondered about these kinds of fads, and then wondered why he never himself felt compelled to follow any of the trends out there. Was it him that was strange, or them? Was anybody strange at all, for following or not following? He looked on as one guy did a mid air full body arch, arms outreached in some personal call of victory, and landed softly on... nothing. An invisible force that kept him safe, as he hovershoed towards a ramp and did a climb upwards into the air, feet over head and dangled down again into the field of challenged gravity. Behind him, a white haired girl followed, doing a hovershoe shuffle, twisting her feet back and forth in rythym, like an applause to all that he was doing in front of her. But their eyes never met, he was looking forward, she had her eyes closed and seemed to be following him with just her own sense of him. Ed was glad to see, when they finished their little hovershoe show, that they faced each other and smiled broadly at each other. For some reason, it gave Ed relief.

And she appeared, at first blending in so well she was almost missed, wearing all white herself, but her hair, black with faded red tipped ends and wearing no hovershoes or shoes at all. Barefoot. Ed watched her lips move to something she was hearing on her ever-present earpiece to her ear. No sound, she seemed to be lip synching, but when she got very close, he could hear her whisper words to the song playing. He gently lifted the earpiece from her ear and placed it on his own, she pressed a button on her player that started the song over and then she mouthed the song perfectly to him, as if she were singing it, as he heard it for the first time.

Not a lot of time to think today
It's almost over now
Didn't need it anyway
Guess I knew somehow

You came to me
Out of the blue
And into my heart
Out of the blue
Straight to my heart

Ed took her fingertips to his lips and kissed them. She stared into his eyes and placed her fingers on his cheek and then pressed her hand to his face. His hand came up to her hand, and she turned her hand around to meet his and they entwined their fingers together and held on so tightly as a hovershoer went by them so fast they felt a gust of air and energy.