Michael Flint's Questionnaire

The camera turns on to display a man with tousled brown hair waking up from sleep in a messy hotel bed. He slaps one hand at the camera, as if to silence an alarm. As the man drifts back to sleep, he suddenly jerks to a straight backed sitting position as he fully wakes up in a harrowed sweat. He claws at the air for a moment, before calming down with a few deep breaths.

”Some fucking alarm,” he whispers. 

The camera repeats its question in its robotic tone: What town or city do you live in? Why do you live there instead of anywhere else? Describe your home.

”If I answer will you shut up?”

The camera remains silent.

”Listen, I live in a shitty apartment in Manhattan. Not much of a choice because I gotta travel a lot for my job, and it’s close enough to LaGuardia. I really should move soon though, the taxes in the city are getting nuts.”

The man climbs out of bed finally.

”And I barely even use the place. Most of the time I gotta sleep in a company sponsored hotel, like this Hampton Inn. Just part of the job. Can’t be a pilot without moving around a lot.”

The camera repeats its question again.

The man shoves it into his suitcase and the video ends.

“Like most people. I work. I’m a pilot for Delta. The weekly shifts aren’t too bad, but it is a lot of travel. I get to see a lot of the world.”

The camera beeps, recording the statement

”What do I spend it on? Well…a lot of things. Mostly sightseeing. If you gotta travel a lot for the job, might as well see the sights, yeah? When I get the time to, I do a lot of tourism. I’ve been all over. East Coast, West Coast, Italy, Brazil, you name it.”

”And I like the travel. It helps keep my mind off…well, you know. Stress, right?”

The man chuckles, strained.

”And stress has been piling on lately. I’ve been making a bit more than most pilots…cuz of Carter. Ever since that night he seems to think he owns me. Well, he basically does. To be honest with you, he scares the shit out of me. Dark suit, darker deeds whenever he gives the call to his people.”

”So yeah, when Carter asks me to take a few extra packages onto the flight…asks me to omit a few entries on the baggage log, I don’t question it.”

“I used to have a pretty normal life before Carter MacArthur ruined it. A steady job, good work friends. 

Then my friend Ed Cochlin got in a work accident. But we all knew it was no work accident. Ed was a Boeing engineer. A good guy, who loved his work, and loved playing soccer more. The thing is, he started seeing problems with how the planes were built. Problems that could have gotten Boeing into a lot of legal trouble. 

So after the news got out that Ed was going to testify, he got in an ‘accident’. I don’t know what exactly happened, but they broke his legs. His arms. He wasn’t able to move all that well. 

But even from the hospital bed Ed wanted to testify. At the time I was visiting him each day in the hospital. Even though his lawyer had warned him against letting people other than his family visit, Ed kept letting me visit. We’d been friends for a long time. I’d been his best man at his wedding.

But after the first few visits…I got called into a meeting at work. That was when I first met Carter. He threatened my job, threatened my family, showed me pictures of exactly where my retired parents were and told me exactly what he could have happen to them. 

I was terrified. I didn’t want to lose my job and I had to protect my Mom. My Dad. That’s what I told myself anyways. That’s the mantra I kept repeating in my head when I went in for that late night visit. When, while Ed was napping…I poured that packet Carter had slipped me into his IV drip.

The next few days, the media said Ed had gotten sick. When he died they blamed it on natural illness. But that wasn’t the truth. I killed Ed. I’m a murderer. 

And that’s when the nightmare came. Every night since, I’ve been haunted by it. It doesn’t make sense. I don’t know why I keep dreaming I’m a bird, or why the rock, or the shackles…but it doesn’t matter. I think somewhere out there, it’s God punishing me. Because often when I tear into that man, in my dreams, it’s Ed’s face. Ed’s face in pain. And it hurts to hurt him just as much as it did the first time. 

If I don’t find a way out of this hell, a way out of Carter’s clutches, a way to live with myself…

I don’t know what I’ll become.”

“One is—was Ed. Ed was my best friend. Amazing coworker. We shared a lot together, growing up. He was big on sports I was kind of a nerd. But even after college, when he went on into engineering and I went into piloting, we kept in touch. Hell, I was even part of the city soccer league with him. But I killed Ed. My best friend. Because I was scared.”

”Jessica is Ed’s wife. She was a great part of our friend group, and they were happy together. She’s Ed’s widow, now. I’ve been avoiding her ever since the murder. She still thinks I’m a great guy, thanked me for the speech I gave at the funeral. If only she knew. Every time she compliments me it’s another internal twist. I don’t deserve any of it. But when she invites me to gatherings, I can’t decline. It’d be suspicious. So I attend, and act like nothing’s wrong. Even though it kills me inside.”

”Carl’s my Dad. He means the world to me. He was a trucker, drove across the country for years to support our family. All the time he’d tell me growing up that while he was driving those trucks, he wished he could fly instead. Maybe be an astronaut. Told me how he loved seeing the world. He was so proud of me when I became a pilot. Proud I continued the family travel legacy and even one upped him. I think he’d hate me if he ever knew what I had to do to keep the job. But he’s retired now. So we don’t see each other too often. Which is a shame. I miss him. But with what I’ve become, it’s probably for the best.”