I was born in a storm, somewhere several miles above the Atlantic Ocean. This was unexpected, to say the least, as my mother was only six months pregnant at the time, but so it was. She went into short, sharp labour in the aeroplane toilet during the in-flight movie (Heaven’s Gate – she didn’t miss much) and by the time the nuts and Bloody Marys were being handed around, I was squealing and squalling tinily in the washbasin.
There were jokey, heartwarming articles in a number of newspapers, and a bit of debate about what nationality I was (it was a KLM flight from Amsterdam to New York, in international airspace), but all I got out of it in the end was dual Dutch-US nationality and a fascination with aeroplanes that led me to train as a pilot. And thanks in part to this, I haven’t set foot on solid ground for the last seven years.
It’s sort of a curse thing.
If you would like to read the rest of this story, please check out Weird Lies, the recent Arachne Press anthology in which it, and many other fantastical stories from the League archives, appears.
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