Disclaimer: The story, The Highway, is a literary work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblances to actual events, locales, or persons, alive or dead, is entire coincidental. Inspired on Tolkien’s tales, but derived fully from my own imagination and holds no direct links to the tales.
The Highway
1.
You should not be jealous at me. You should not envy me. Not my position in society, not the fame I have, not on my future, nor just the days I have to myself. It is no use. A life in the shadows in full anonymity, in poverty, ignored. That sounds to me as a dream. To be nothing and to have nothing, but just freedom. To be forgotten, that is liberty to me. But the world entire, all of human society, wouldn’t allow me to have this freedom and this liberty. It’s only the kingdom of all animals that have this normal interest in me, as long my attention can satisfy them. After that they ignore me. They are not more aware of me, than their primitive brains allow them. A fly on the wall has a better life than me, even its life is short, just seasonal really. All needs fulfilled it dies. Sometimes I wish I had a life like that, just to be a fly. This is my saga.
2.
What can I tell about this time I live in? Imagine yourself not to be in your time, but a some hundred years forward. Let’s imagine fourhundred, fivehundred? That is quite much not? Yes, that is the time in which I was born, a quarter of a century ago. Fear not, we still use the Gregorian calendar. Some of it you will recognise that the Big Ben still chimes over London, and that the Notre Dame is proudly standing in her place and not torn down. Preservation methods started over half millennium ago, had saved a lot of historical monuments from ruin and destruction. The broad boulevards home hadn’t changed either. Space was there in abundance, but not everywhere for all. Life happened for those who could not afford, tiny homes, spacious enough to sleep, shower and have a small kitchen, but that was about it. Those homes were old and dilapidated, build long ago from cheap, but environmental materials that were eaten soon the damp came in. The isolation had never been that glorious as had been advertised half millennium ago. Better against those torrential rains were homes made of stone and roofs covered by stone slabs. Maintained? They stood nearly forever. Stone was almost indestructible, except for frost. Over sixty percent of the planet lived in these tiny homes, as ground was considered expensive, or had long been it. I call them coffin homes, a place you are buried eventually.
A romantic soul, whose name is forgotten, brought the brilliant idea in the world to intertwine old Europe with Middle Earth, to call up a fabled sense of heroism and nobleness that a hundredfifty years after the four worldwars was forgotten. It stuck and was glued in, but this fabled sense did not return. Electronic devices as phones and laptops prevented that. Communications ran mostly over them and not happened by the water source on the market square, as people had done since antiquity. The telephone had let vital cultural and social component vanish. People as I notice, are oblivious from one and the other. It has been since three centuries. Middle Earth was fixed in a fantasy, where the west was good and the east evil. In the west lived the elves, in the east the orcs. But what was there in north and in the south?
Around the turn of the last millennium, ideas of greening everything were employed. But as this change from gas and benzene to complete electricity had a drawback in this Middle Earth as soon as the century ended. The intensive flow of these fossil fuels in the wider world as other minerals were delved in mines and transported abroad, it was cash flow for the elite at the time, but not what vanished into the pockets of the simple men. Often these rare minerals were toxic and not friendly at all, for human, beast or plant. The majority of the population was poor, as their ancestors had been, living in serfdom. A person who was historically attached to the land of the landlord and was not free to leave. It was abolished in 1861AD. But in certain ways attachment to the places of origin remained ingrained, even throughout the first centuries of this third millennium. Slavery was grander than it had been in the days it was accepted.
I had to paint this picture of Europe in my time, because you are probably from another era?
3.
This good west of the Faithful ran into shock when satellites and television towers shot images from a single white aeroplane cutting through the sky, with writing on the body that could not be read straight. But they knew where it came from, orc invested country, from the east. That was where the baddies lived since collective memory could recall. Perhaps there have been a few decennia there had been friendships? But against the thousands of years it were just a few seconds. It is not remembered. The bad was remembered. Who flew that plane? You can guess. They didn’t know on the airports and in the media, but let me tell you, it was huge news. With tinted windows to block out dangerous rays of the sun, who sat behind the yoke could not be deciphered. Today a plane ran on a dangerous fuel, but it was nearly inexhaustible. Onkalo was the first example of nuclear waste disposal in the bedrock, now of many across Middle Earth. Waste, that singsonged longer around than the use of my biological materials thousand times over, before it finally would be safe. I couldn’t escape fame where I came, but as the plane flew my anonymity was secure for the moment.
It had all begun the evening before my leaving. My grandfather handed over the sceptre and seal, where laws would be legalised with. Without it, politics got stuck. It was this sovereign signature that stood only after three centuries. And it travelled with me through the sky, to the west. The images come back to me, the frown on his worn face, the lines around his mouth. I was his only hope. It had been in the private quarters of his apartment. The richness and splendour was always around I never really noticed it. The normal surrounded my family, that seldom came to mind, others lived differently. Granddad had told me so that moment. It had been surreal. I don’t know what kind of future I would meet. But unprepared I am certainly not.
The railway across the continent runs west to east and back, basically in two separate tracks, all of the cities are near the vicinity of the line, or have a direct connection. Just as in the Canada, there is a certain parallel below you live quite comfortably around the year. But the northern tundra is extremely hostile and wild, and barely habitable. Unless you possess a fierce survival spirit to battle the months long intense cold of Scandinavia and Siberia. In general it is not commendable to dream of it. But people across the century undertook that journey to reach the polar sea. These grounds lived always in dreams, for exploration and exploitation. But the grand joy of the centuries back turned to deception, it was if a nuclear bomb hid the northern world. Lucky it was for everyone, who put effort to save the polar bear and the penguins, and so many other sea creatures unique to this part of the planet. I am not to have an opinion or a standpoint, but yes I have it.
4.
Leaving the homeland behind was cutting yourself in two. Everyone who left the homeland, would feel this torment, for how long I cannot say. The clouds outside my windows wouldn’t tell, only that somewhere below me were some thunder lightnings that flashed through the darkened sky and promised torrential rains. Electricity in the sky that was released. Who caught it, could power up a battery. I changed something in the speed, but kept the at the height I had climbed over the town I had chosen the sky in the early night. Onboard was nobody further than myself. It was a medium plane in the back, good for a hundred people to sit. But half of the seats were covered with suitcases, that belonged to me. The sleek design of the craft was far more than just a passenger vehicle. The function was longhaul. Middle Earth was no longer the only place in this universe. Half a millennium had left traces, that could not be erased. There was no chatter yet over the comms.
Four months ago there was a row within the family that had not directly a connection to me, but sick as I was to be an asset of discussion I made plans to leave for Europe. An extensive travel around all major capitals was my idea, but much of it has not happened yet. I might do it? I had wanted to have this anonymity, but my mixed European and Asian features, thanks to the marriage between my mom and dad, make me pretty recognisable within all elites. But I am also desirable among normal people, a kind of dream in their less dreamy existence. They print me in magazines, newspapers, on leaflets, but also feature me in the video news, on shows and programs. I am not present there, nor I do ever interviews. The guardians around protected me from the bother of the media, but also every commoner, politician or journalist. Media claimed I was dashy, good-looking, the dream for men and women alike. I was of average length, didn’t have a too deep voice and intense black hair. It was not foul blond or bleak brown, or that was it almost black. They put an epiphyte on me, not that I am evil or other deeds that cannot see daylight. It was just about my looks. I wasn’t able to do anything about it, not defend myself in the media, or that the home office released a statement not to engage about the royal house members in such terms.
Then there was sudden a chime over the comms and a red light flashed up, that indicated a traffic connection with the ground. I would not transmit images of myself, but from other side was a video connection.
“Paris Tower to unknown craft, you must turn your indentification on.”
The voice had a vague French accent spoken in English. Standard response when the IFF was silent. I didn’t want to be recognised by friend or fiend. Not very wise I realised, but I had to respond something. I couldn’t tell if it was human or a droid.
“I am only passing over, no more. I am searching still the accesspoint for the Highway.”
That was an euphemism for a route long forgotten. Middle Earth was a lost paradise at last. This era was coming to an end, if it had ever begun. Who knew? Who remembered? Who could tell the songs of old? Human memory was just as long people could recall correctly.
“Paris Tower to unknown aircraft, you must indentify, otherwise you’ll be detained.”
So much for threats. It was expected if you came from the evil east. I coursed for higher altitudes. My plane could handle it. All planes were build for the vacuum. Air was recycled via systems in the belly and the back. There was little choice for me perhaps that to risk the vacuum above me.
5.
It is the year of 2675AD. The 27th century in fact. You can count back what my year of birth is. The comm flashed again, there was another communication. French soil had been left. I was over the Atlantic. But the waters were far below me, that gravity not really had a lock on me longer. Outside it was the border between the light of the sun and the darkness where stars displayed at the heavens. My dreams were futile. I wouldn’t see anything of this Middle Earth, as the plane flew on the edges of flying lanes. But the connection was clear as water. But I was busy to plot a course away from this place. Navigation displayed the planet in a big universe. Paths shone across the various lanes that could be travelled. On the display before me popped an image of the Union of Middle Earth, a wheel with twelve spokes referring to the twelve nations still a member off.
“The Dark Prince, we could have known.”
My cover was blown. Little I could do about it. They must have cracked beyond the IFF responder to have a visual on me. It wouldn’t stop me from where I was going. But the news covering would be in a few minutes planetary wide I flew up in the atmosphere. I had passed through different parts of it, the troposphere and stratosphere, the mesosphere, into the outer layers, the thermosphere and the exosphere. I flew on the nightside, because the temps were much cooler than and asked less from the outer hull of the plane.
“You cannot escape us, Dark Prince!”
It was in this layer of the atmosphere, where I let my craft really come up into the speed. It was a slingshot mechanism, but that is how it was to escape the gravity, it was a matter of minutes, when navigation pinned the Highway on my screen. The comm broke suddenly off which was a relief to me. I wouldn’t miss the threats from the peoples, the Faithful as they called themselves, in Middle Earth, on the European continent. The empire would probably not much longer be there. Not in the form since my family took power. We fought a few wars, there has been famine, one revolt, two epidemics and four uprisings. There was democracy, autocracy, confederation, socialism and imperialism. It was nothing new considering to the nation as a whole. It is vast, and differences are unlike than any other land across the globe, historical, cultural, linguistically and genetically. The west was mostly European, the east mostly Asian, the middle southern region mostly Turkish. A third of the population speaks the common language as first, the other twothird as a second or third language. It was taught in schools, used at work and in the media. My family ancestors claimed the power after violent uprisings in the late twentythird century. It is just history by now, but still. The European Union held on to early this twentythird century, but lost its purpose for which it was erected in 300 years prior, the prevention of war. In Europe, the land was called the Ilyinov Empire. All old boundaries were blurred and shifted. More accurate you can say, it has a rough border as it had been in the middle ages.
We were the land of evil, of the orc. Hence my epiphyte the Dark Prince. I was the eldest grandchild of my grandfather. I had some few younger half siblings who felt they had more rights on my position. My father, the former prince, had died a while ago under strange circumstances. Autopsy hadn’t been able to conclude, it has been suicide or murder. My mother had died many years back. My display blinked twice, and lay the final approach open to the Highway. You probably ask, what is the Highway? I can only smile. I was torn in two, for what I left behind. The continent was immensely beautiful, the woods brimming of life. But the Highway would bring me to another homeland. Something promised many eras ago, a travel I look forward to. Maybe there will be frowns, but no threats. Not as it is in Middle Earth, wrapped into it’s own darkness. How they would emerge from it? That was no longer my concern, not that of my family anymore.
6.
A planetary intercepting fleet came after me. They came on the display too, just from behind the planet. The Highway was a flash in the sky, where my plane soared towards. I sighed deep when I reduced speed, flew a much slower and at the gate pulled a lever beside me. The lines of space stretched out around me and the gate closed into nothing swallowing me up. The planet of Middle Earth I saw no longer. It lay soon a few light years behind me. All comms were now silent too. The Highway, as it was told to me, is a one way route. There is not return over, back to Middle Earth. A beautiful land lay at the end. It had to be another planet? It is as much a myth. The planetary fleet would have seen me vanish into what they called hyperspace. But if they would have seen the light? Would they be able to calculate the coordinates along I flew?
My name is Valentin Matvey Ilyin and I am twentyfive years old. From my names you know my gender, but as myself it matters not much to me. Had I been born of the other gender, the feeling had been similar, to what I feel now, confined and restricted. And this is where my saga comes in. I don’t know longer who I am precise. Could I keep my names at the end of the Highway? Or would I get new ones? And I spoke Uussyin, with Amerianska and Spaniola as one of the three head languages in Middle Earth. Many other dialects were spoken, thousands of them. I was educated in all three. What will they speak in the new homeland? Live there people like me? Who also speak Uussyin as first language? Or do I have to forget? Renounce my identity and all I ever learned? Perhaps now I could live in anonymity? Be that fly on the wall? In poverty? With what I had in the back, that was not really possible.
Two days I flew through this hyperspace, over the Highway. Two days to myself in planetary hours. I cannot tell you what I will meet there, friends or fiends? Maybe you have an idea? Maybe you have heard of a place where no evil exist? Where nobody is called an orc, when you are from the east? I have a feeling, that even my siblings wanted, are not able to follow me. That access to the Highway is denied to them. With my leaving and my weary grandfather left behind, the land was practically theirs. But if Europe would let this happen? I would never come to know this, I left the system of Middle Earth behind me. Whatever happened, it has not my interest anymore. I am free from that burden. At last my saga comes slowly to an end. I don’t know what awaits me at the end. I have firepower enough onboard to fight me out a tricky situation, if landfall is not what it should be. And food and water I have enough onboard. I can do without for while, if I must. But a good vegetable meal does me good. Hmm, yes my family has been vegetarians as long memory goes back. Don’t ask me why. It is just that way. Our metabolism functions better on veggies. I sit in my chair behind the wheel and all the buttons around me. The lines of hyperspace zoom by unhindered. I smile, there is a few future ahead.
Words: 3241
Date: 17-06-2024
Written by Aikári Salmarinian
Just call me Aiks or Aikári. Notify is off.
Find me stuff in Gondolin.
And let us embark to Valinor!
. So many talented people come to the Cottage and share. Maybe next time, more people will knock at the competition door. 
Good luck!
Nice try,though! You can always run for admin next time, though. 
