GPS failed. Radio’s out, but the island was inviting. Good timing too, since fuel needle had banged on empty-pin thirty minutes ago. What else? DO NOT ASK! No time for approach. Just head toward the clearing with gear down. At best, there were no shrubs nor grass. His spot to try was smooth. Looked velvety but shiny, appeared solid. Seat belt? Check.

An image, a memory flashed.

Not a really wide opening, but adequate diameter to fit his braking distance after touch down.

He tried to remember. What was that image of? It wouldn’t stay long enough to register.

Entire oval below edged around with bars pointing away from the open. Each ended in a ball.

Really familiar, but he couldn’t dig it up. Keep it. Frustrating. It only flashed.

His attention was on the controls. Had to be, now. He’d guessed right. Great! Wheels touched and maybe enough fumes left to reverse props, to brake. Feet on the pedals lightly, yet ready to stand hard, both on right or left if needed to slip sideways and stay on the surface. Might tip over on the bars?

The plane stopped. He breathed. Both still, at the oval’s edge.
Viscous liquid began to seep out of and over the surface. STRANGE!.
Peripherally, the bars and balls were moving, lifting.
Edges of the open were curling up, folding over them.
Plane and he inside were nudged toward the growing shadow at center.
Got darker yet when the bars intertwined overhead. Slivers of the outside daylight persisted, barely.

Finally, his image surfaced and held. Matched what this place looked like from the air. Botany!

But this one was huge! Really huge. The flat pans ringed with sticky, ball tipped “fingers.”
A SUNDEW; a HUGE sundew.

What will those digestive acids do to the aluminum skin of the plane?
No wondering how he’d go. End up.

His image morphed from plant to empty skeletons of flies and beetles.
Their insides dissolved, absorbed.
The class had found both inside their lab specimens.

He could now taste the the acrid fumes.

IT thought. If it could, he was a fly?

 
Doniaven Leckenby