The Shade of Rivals

The sky is the color of a bruised plum, and the sand is already piling against the landing gear like loose sugar. It’s a flat, featureless expanse of limestone and grit, nothing but the heat shimmering off the ground in wavering lines. My biplane, *The Gannet*, sits on its belly, one main strut sunk slightly into the soft earth, casting a long, sharp triangle of shadow on the white dust. Inside the cockpit, the engine tick-tick-ticks as it cools, a metronome for the silence that has swallowed the world. I am sitting on the top wing of *The Gannet*, legs dangling, staring at the horizon where the storm is still building, a brown wall rolling in from the east. There are two planes here. Mine, and his.