"This is crazy! This is stupid! This doesn't make any sense!" Daquan Quantum yelled furiously as he paced in the living room of his combination lab and cabin the woods. "This can't be happening, this isn't real!"
"I don't know man, this looks pretty real to me," Keenan Quantum said as he stood in the entrance of the cabin. He wore a full suit and tie, a top hat, and an exquisitely trimmed comically large handlebar mustache. He looked out over the front yard, or, more accurately, what was left of the front yard.
The sky stretched seemingly infinitely. There was no horizon. A small floating island of rock carried the Quantum Brother's lab atop it, in an endless expanse of sky.
Daquan paced around. His phone blared the call tune as he waited for a response. "Johnathan isn't picking up. This is ridiculous." Daquan scrambled to the remote and tried to get a signal on the TV. "We have satellite, how the hell is this not working?"
"Yeah, I'm surprised the TV is even on. There's no way we're still connected to the electrical grid."
"Keenan, how the hell are you so calm about this right now?" Daquan asked. "This is weird, right?"
"Yeah, I've seen weirder." Keenan shrugged.
"NO YOU HAVE NOT! ABSOLUTELY NO YOU HAVE NOT!"
"Yeah." Keenan blinked at the endless expanse of sky. "Yeah, no, you're right. This is wacky."
As Daquan kept pacing, Keenan stepped outside and sat on the edge of the floating island their home had become. He dangled his legs off the side and peered over into the abyss. He couldn't see the Earth below him. So, either most of the entire Earth had disappeared, or the piece of land they were standing on was transported to some other location. Either way, that was pretty weird.
"You know, for once I'm glad you're here to see this," Keenan said, to no one. "Finally I've got a story tell. Don't think anybody would believe me if they weren't also here to see it." Keenan turned around. "Hey, it can't just be us that this happened to, right?" he yelled out to his younger brother.
Daquan peeked out of the doorway, seeing the situation he was in again, and quickly looked away, returning to pacing. "Oh my god. Oh my god. What the hell."
Keenan stood to go inside, continuing his idea, "Like there are probably other islands out there, you know? Like statistically it would be very weird if it was just us."
"I don't know, man, I don't know," Daquan sputtered nervously as he paced. "I can't... Listen... I don't... God, dude... I don't know. I just don't. Maybe. Sure, probably. But it's not like we'd be able to find them? We're stuck here! We have no satellite connection, we can't contact anybody. We're gonna die here!"
As Daquan droned on about all his worries, Keenan's gaze morphed into an unfocused stare as he slowly turned to face one of the only bits of land that remained, despite the foundation beneath the house.
A single pine tree remained, and beneath it, covered in a red tarp, was his dad's old rowboat. Keenan blinked at it. Leaning against the boat was a rusty old bicycle. He chuckled.
After his parents passed, Keenan and his older brother Johnathan had to essentially take up raising Daquan. They figured the cliche dad thing to do would be to teach him how to ride a bike, but Daquan sucked at it and hated it and was being a big old crybaby about falling over, or whatever, so they set aside the bike with the other unused mode of transport in their front yard, left to be forgotten by time.
And yet these two pieces of family lore remained - and they sparked something in Keenan's mind.
As the day passed, the sun somehow set and turned to night, despite there being no horizon for the sun to fall under. That was senseless and confusing and probably had some plot relevance to a grander story that isn't being fully explored in these short stories for the internet, but whatever.
Daquan ventured out of the house, wondering what Keenan had been up to all day as he spent the day trying to contact Johnathan, or the authorities, or put together a survival strategy. What was Keenan up to all this time, he wondered.
"Keenan, what the f@#$ is that."
"Oh." Keenan flinched, startled by his brother's presence. He stepped away from his grand design. Sitting in the front yard was an amalgamation of parts. The old rusty bike replaced the front bench-like seat of the rowboat, and through chains and rudders at the back, was rigged to some sort of steering system.
Wood beams held up an engine of sorts above the boat, and, attached to that, slowly being filled with hot air from a burst of flame from the engine, was a massive red balloon, constructed of the tarp that once covered the boat.
"Is that Dad's boat?" Daquan asked.
"Not anymore!" Keenan slapped the side of the boat with pride. "I present to you, my dear brother, our ticket out of here! The Hot Air Ba-Boat!"
"The what?"
"Get it? Because, Hot Air Ballon? But it's a boat? The Hot Air Ba-BAUGH!" Keenan choked on his words as Daquan grappled him. "It's a pun!" Keenan explained.
"Why can't you ever take anything seriously!? I could kill you! Are you crazy!?"
"I thought we wanted to see if there were other islands..."
Daquan launched into a bout of pacing again, mumbling to himself.
Keenan rubbed his neck as he looked over at the Hot Air Ba-Boat. "I thought it was a good idea. It kinda seemed meant to be, you know? Dad left this for us. What are the chances, right?"
Daquan stopped pacing. He looked over at the stupid aircraft again, pinching his nose.
"All this time, the boat was covered in exactly the right amount of tarp to make a balloon? We never got rid of the boat even after we stopped using it? I had this dream once, out on the lake. Like I was floating in the sky."
Daquan stared at Keenan. His face softened as he listened to his brother, understanding. "I guess it's worth a shot. What do we have to lose. We'll die anyway."
"Exactly." Keenan smiled. "Now get into the Hot Air Ba-Boat!"
Daquan was fueled with rage all over again. "See that's my problem! Not everything needs a dumb name, Keenan! You're allowed to take stuff seriously! You're so flippant with our survival! How am I supposed to trust something built by someone who would name it something like that!?"
"What's the fun in inventing stuff if you don't get to name it something dumb? I mean even our parents did that!"
"What? They didn't invent anything?"
Keenan raised a brow. "Daquan Quantum? Yeah, you're one to comment on dumb names."
"I'm going to kill you."
Keenan leapt into the Hot Air Ba-Boat, sitting on top of the bicycle control system. "Get in, the water's fine!"
Daquan looked back at the lab. He shook his head. "I'm so confused, man..." Daquan wandered inside. "I'm not leaving without at least prepping some gear," he said.
"Alright, I'll be here!" Keenan waved. He sighed and looked out at the night sky. The stars twinkled. Although, they definitely weren't the correct arrangement of stars. That was also probably plot relevant or something.
Keenan slouched forward and leaned against the handlebars of the bike, and he looked up at the bowsprit of the Hot Air Ba-Boat, and he raised a brow.
A small blue butterfly fluttered by, and landed on the front of the boat.
A knot twisted in Keenan's stomach as he slowly sat up. "Okay... That's... That's too heavy handed to just be symbolism... Should I..." he looked around. "Should I be scared?"
The butterfly flapped its wings before taking off, and flying away.
Keenan looked out to the sky with a twisted knot of an expression, trying to figure out what that meant, if anything. He chuckled, and leaned back on the bike.
He looked around at the boat.
Daquan rushed in with a bag of supplies, ready to go.
As the Hot Ai Ba-Boat lifted from the ground for the first time, and made its first voyage across the sky, Keenan smiled contently.
"Thanks, dad."