The Scent of an Angel
Tim Krzys
“Flight two forty-five for Houston now boarding.” The voice boomed through the waiting area like a command to action.
The people crowding the waiting area suddenly stood and began wrestling with their luggage, gathering up their newspapers and reaching inside their pockets for their tickets, and moving toward the rapidly growing line. A few type As, always in a hurry to stand and wait, were already in a line of sorts, and they rapidly fell into formation like a row of soldiers readying for inspection.
Brad Williams watched the line growing longer as he held a cell phone to his ear. He studied the lengthening line, wondering if there would still be overhead space when he reached his assigned seat.
“We’re boarding now, honey. Tell the kids I’ll see them in about,” he paused and looked at his watch, “four hours. Don’t hold dinner for me.” It could easily be seven by the time he got home if he didn’t have to wait too long to get his luggage, if the line out of long term parking wasn’t held up by everyone using credit cards, and if traffic on the expressway wasn’t snarled by an accident. It seemed a lot to hope for, but Brad was an optimistic person.
There was a long pause and he wondered if the connection had been broken. He stared at the growing line and looked down at his small pull behind suitcase. It didn’t take up much space, but everyone in line had luggage larger than his. Those overhead compartments filled quickly.
“You there?” he asked, still watching the line.
“Yes. I just had a funny feeling, that’s all.”
“What kind of funny feeling?” He bent over and pulled up the handle on his pull behind, checked to make sure his two hundred dollar briefcase was securely attached, and walked slowly to the growing line.
“I don’t know.” Another pause. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I feel fine. Just a little tired, that’s all. It’s been a long trip. What kind of feeling?” Cheryl too often felt this way before something bad happened. Two years ago before his father died suddenly from a stroke, she sensed something. Three years before that, she knew something was going to happen to her brother Eric. A week later, he was dead, victim of a drunk driver. But sometimes when she was on her period she had similar feelings that resulted in nothing but a little worry and lost sleep. He didn’t know if it was the hormone changes or the chocolate she ate that made her intuition go haywire. The last question he was going to ask if it was that time of month. That was a question no man should ever raise unless he was offering to stop at the store for tampons and sanitary napkins.
“That feeling. You know.”
He did know, and as he watched people board the plane he wondered whom it would be this time, if indeed it wasn’t that time of the month. There weren’t many relatives left. “Look hon, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you as soon as I get to my car.”
“Okay. I love you. I’ll save some dinner for you.”
They said goodbye and Brad turned off his phone and stuffed it into his suit pocket. One thing was odd. She didn’t say, ‘have a good flight.’ It was as routine as telling their teenage daughter to drive carefully when she left the house, car keys in hand. Like a superstitious spell believed to ward off evil.
Brad stepped into the still growing line, ticket in hand and after a few minutes he settled into his aisle seat.
In the past when flying on business trips was a novelty, he always requested a window seat. He enjoyed looking out at the world with all the wonder of a child, seeing everything in miniature, watching tiny semis crawl along thin ribbons of highway that stretched to the horizon. But, after a hundred thousand miles of flying, countless delayed flights and late arrivals, he changed to requesting an aisle seat toward the front. It meant a slightly quicker exit upon landing. Maybe it only saved him five minutes, but that meant five more precious minutes with his family. Brad stuffed his suitcase into the overhead compartment, and settled into his seat. There was something relaxing about getting that whole boarding process over with. It was almost as comforting as having a good bowel movement. Such simple pleasures seemed so underrated in life. Being middle age, he found himself having more thoughts like that. It should probably disturb him, but pleasure was pleasure wherever you found it. He settled back into his seat and closed his eyes.
“Excuse me, I have the window seat.”
Brad looked up and saw a pretty, thirty-something brunette holding a large purse that could almost double as a suitcase, trying to avoid being trampled by a family of four shoving their way down the aisle, luggage and stuffed animals in hand.
“Here, let me get up.” Brad stood and stepped into the crowded aisle among all the passengers trying to stuf their suitcases into the overhead compartments, and slamming them shut one after another as if in rehearsed unison. It was a welcomed sound. It meant they were closer to take off.
The brunette smiled, held her purse close to her chest and squeezed past Brad into the window seat.
Brad got a whiff of her perfume and instantly recognized the scent. It reminded him of his wife Cheryl.
“Is that Angel you’re wearing?”
She looked at him, her face drawn with tightened lines probably placed there by countless and annoying pickup lines. “Yes, it is.” Her smile seemed tense and forced.
Brad noticed the look and worried that his comment was misinterpreted. “It’s my wife’s favorite. In fact, I picked up a new bottle today. She’s almost out.”
Her smiled widened as Brad sat down. “It’s my favorite too. Do you travel a lot?”
“Too much. Every week. And you?”
“Rarely, especially after, you know.” She didn’t want to say 9/11. No one flying ever wanted to say those words. It was more forbidden than talking about slimy worms and fish guts at the dinner table. There was something about flying that made the most reasonable, educated and science oriented people become very superstitious. “My name’s Christine,” she added after a short pause.
“Brad Williams.” They shook hands and he noticed her long, red nails and the softness of her touch. Just like his wife. Brad looked up as one of the flight attendants walked down the aisle, head turning right then left, checking for fastened seat belts, secured luggage, upright tray tables and probably for anything even remotely suspicious. When she came to an open overhead compartment, she lowered the door and pushed it shut.
“I hate flying.” With effort, Christine pushed her large purse under the seat in front of her, and then fastened her seat belt. “But, it’s the fastest way to get home and see my family.”
“Are you from Houston?”
“Not originally. My dad moved there when I was seven. I was born in Boston.”
“That’s quite a move.”
“My mom died of cancer and I think my dad was looking to escape memories. He never did re-marry. Too bad. I think he’d be a great catch for some older woman. Normally, I drive to Houston because I hate flying so much. But my dad sent me a ticket for my birthday.” She smiled then looked up as the flight attendant began going through the pre-flight safety instructions.
“I could recite those in my sleep. You can always tell the business travelers. They don’t pay any attention.” He chuckled briefly.
“I suppose I should listen, since I’ve rarely flown, but really, what can you do in a plane crash anyway?”
She was probably right, but it wasn’t something he wanted to think about at the moment. He’d heard the odds of dying in a plane crash were one in three million. The odds of winning the lottery were greater, and he knew someone who won the lottery. He didn’t know of anyone who died in a plane crash. It was not a comforting thought. Brad shrugged his shoulders and looked around the cabin, trying to visualize what kind of flight he was going to have. A child was fussing five rows back, and across the aisle and two rows back, an infant was sleeping in its mother’s lap. That wouldn’t last long. Somewhere behind him, a baby started crying and Brad checked his watch, wondering how long it would be before he could ask the flight attendant for a drink.
After several minutes of taxiing on the runway, the captain announced they were number one for take off. A minute later the jet picked up speed and began rumbling down the runway, the tires making a clop clop sound as they rolled over seams in the tarmac. Brad loved the rush and the sensation of being pushed back into the seat. It was the best part of the flight.
Christine turned and looked out the window watching everything speed past them at over a hundred fifty miles an hour. As the jet accelerated nearby objects shot by in a blur. The jet had reached the point of no return. Even if the pilot wanted to abort the take-off, there wasn’t enough remaining runway for a safe stop.
Christine gripped the armrests tightly and stared forward. Suddenly the jet’s nose pointed upward and it was airborne. Within seconds, the landing gear folded with a loud whine and disappeared into the belly of the jet with two loud ka-thumps.
“What was that?” Christine’s eyes widened.
“Just the landing gear. Nothing to worry about.”
“Does it always make that much noise?”
Brad smiled and thought back to his first flight. He jumped at every noise and constantly bothered the flight attendants with questions. “Yes, everything’s fine. Don’t worry.” But his wife’s statement rang in his mind like an ominous warning. What was she sensing? He’d feel better when he was home, even though driving in city traffic carried a bigger safety risk. He’d been on a business trip when Cheryl’s brother Eric died. He didn’t travel much then, maybe every month or so, not like now. At the time it seemed he couldn’t hurry home fast enough, and by the time he walked in the front door, the house was filled with relatives he hadn’t seen in years, and Cheryl was alone in the bedroom crying.
“I’m sorry I’m being such a pest. When I get nervous, I talk a lot.”
“That’s okay. I haven’t talked to anyone in days except about profit margins and market initiatives.” He grinned, welcoming the distraction. “Relax. The most dangerous points in flying are take-off and landing.”
“I guess that’s good. One down, one to go. Thank God we don’t have a layover.”
Brad nodded and pushed his shoulders back into the seat and tried to relax. The drone of the engines was such a lulling sound. He wondered why they didn’t make sound machines with that noise. On board a plane, it always made him sleepy. Except today.
“How does your family adjust to your travel?”
“They tolerate it. Both my kids are teenagers so they’re never home anyway, but I don’t think they like it either. It’s hard to borrow money from dad when he’s a thousand miles away!” Brad chuckled and Christine giggled. It was a light and cheerful sound, one that helped to erase worry and tension. He needed more of those sounds in his life.
“How about your wife? Oh, I’m sorry. I’m getting too personal.”
“No, no it’s fine, really.”
“I’m a little nervous.”
“Well don’t be. I fly over a quarter million miles a year, with not so much as a close call.” Suddenly, he felt like a compulsive gambler stuffing quarters into a slot machine. Stand there long enough and three lemons are bound to show up. “Actually, all this travel has been on my mind lately. My wife hates having me gone so much. And with the kids getting older, we’d like to spend more time together. So tonight, I’m going to surprise her.”
“And how’s that?”
“I’ve accepted a different job with my company. It’s a lateral move, no pay raise but I won’t be traveling near as much as I do now.”
“Good for you! I’ll bet she’ll be thrilled with the news.”
The flight attendant came by with the beverage cart and they each ordered a drink to go along with their tiny complimentary package of salted peanuts.
“I remember when you got a meal on this flight. Now you’re lucky to get two packages of nuts, and you have to practically beg for a second one.”
Brad took a few long sips of his drink as he wrestled with the tiny package of peanuts. He tried to remember when his wife had her last period. It wasn’t something she announced like a weather forecast, but there were always signs any slightly attentive husband couldn’t miss.
Suddenly the jet shook violently and their drinks went flying as if bouncing on springs.
“What the hell was that?”
“Turbulence,” Brad told her as he leaned forward and looked past her out the window. “It’s pretty common over thirty thousand feet. Looks like some thunderheads out there. Here, take my napkin. My drink was almost empty.”
She thanked him and began mopping up the spill with the tiny square napkins.
“I hope we don’t have any more of that.” She stuffed the soaked napkins into the empty cup.
Brad noticed the seat belt sign had blinked on and decided they were probably in for a bumpy ride. He saw that Christine’s belt had remained fastened as had his.
“Hello ladies and gentleman, this is the captain. It looks as though they’re having a few storms below us, so we’re climbing up to thirty-three thousand feet to try and get over this bumpy air. Please remain seated with your seat belts fastened. It probably won’t be too long before we find some smooth air again.” The mic clicked off and Brad noticed that Christine was gripping each armrest so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.
“Don’t worry. This happens all the time,” he tried to reassure her. He swallowed hard and noticed there was a lump in his throat like he had swallowed a small rock.
The cabin shook and bounced as the jet hit more turbulence. There was a loud thud from the rear of the jet, but the cabin noise muffled it as the jet bounced and pitched.
“What was that?”
“What?”
“I heard a noise.”
“Just turbulence. Want me to get a magazine for you?”
“What I’d like is another drink.” Fear had scratched its mark on her face. Her eyes had widened and some of the color had drained from her face.
Brad smiled, pushed himself back into his seat, closed his eyes and tried to relax. The flight attendants busied themselves stowing the beverage carts, picking up empty cups and handing out napkins for the passengers to clean up their spills.
“I thought the captain said he was going to a higher altitude.”
“He did. Why?” Brad saw the worried look on her face. The soft features of her face were etched with deep lines and her eyes were wide circles. Suddenly she appeared older, almost his age.
Christine looked out the window then turned toward Brad. “Unless those clouds are rising, I think we’re losing altitude.”
Brad leaned forward and looked past Christine. The clouds did look as though they were going higher. That was impossible, so the jet must be losing altitude.
“Something’s not right.” He scooted to the edge of his seat and turned around to look for a flight attendant. There was none in sight. They were probably all buckled in waiting for smoother air.
Suddenly there was a loud bang from the tail section. It was a noise easily heard over the drone of the engines. The jet bounced as if its wheels had suddenly run over a fallen tree on a runway.
Except for a small number of passengers who appeared to be sleeping, everyone began looking around the cabin, their eyes studying everyone for some clue or answer as to what was happening. The growing hum of conversation became louder.
“What was that?” Christine looked at Brad, her eyes pleading for some rational answer and reassurance.
“I don’t know.” He looked up at the ceiling and pushed the call light. It lit with the faint sound of a bell. “I’m going to find out.”
Turbulence buffeted the jet and somewhere several rows back, a baby started crying, the noise muted by the loud drone of the engines and the conversations that were growing in number. But the hum of the engines was no longer a lulling sound that soothed like white background noise. Fear stoked minds cross-examined every change in sound, and passengers began exchanging opinions on what they thought was wrong.
The jet banked slowly to the left then went level again.
“Something’s wrong! Something has to be wrong! What’s wrong Brad?”
Brad turned around and looked behind him; he saw the worry in everyone’s eyes, and then noticed a flight attendant slowly working her way down the aisle, weaving like a drunk as the jet bounced over invisible bumps. “Just stay calm,” he urged, but he felt anxiety welling up in his gut feeling like a gallon of battery acid. He noticed the man across the aisle was still sleeping, his head rolling as if his neck was made of soft rubber.
“Can I help you?” the flight attendant asked.
“Yes, what’s going on? We’re losing altitude and if that banging noise happens again, I’m going back by the beverage carts and help myself to the liquor drawer.” He felt panic dancing on his nerves and decided that he needed to calm down, at least for Christine’s sake.
“We’re just hitting a little turbulence,” she answered, but there was no confidence in her voice. In fact, she looked pale and drained. Not long before, she had stood up and reviewed safety procedures with the confidence of a real flight veteran.
“Turbulence doesn’t make funny banging noises,” Brad told her.
“Just stay seated. We should be through the worst of it soon.” She smiled, but Brad could tell that is was forced, working upstream against the frown muscles.
“Have you talked to the captain?”
“Everything’s fine. Please don’t worry. As soon as we can resume beverage services, we’ll pass out drinks compliments of the airline.”
Brad nodded and tried to settle back into his seat. They’re going to get us all drunk and then plunge us to our deaths, he wanted to say.
Three rows back there was a retching noise, and a minute later the acrid smell of bile and partially digested food wafted toward the front of the plane. Suddenly the cabin felt tiny and stuffy, filled with a variety of odors as varied as the number of passengers.
They sat in silence as the jet bounced, banking first one way then another. More people were vomiting and Brad wished he had another drink. The odor reminded him of his college days, of a bar he frequented where the bathroom was never cleaned and the pervasive odor of urine, vomit and stale beer was simply part of the ambiance of the establishment. He leaned a little closer to get a whiff of Christine’s perfume, but even that aroma was rapidly losing its battle against the growing stench.
After several minutes it became apparent the pilot was having trouble controlling the aircraft. It seemed the jet wanted to pitch to the right and nosedive. Every few minutes the pilot pulled the aircraft back into line, but it felt like a difficult, and losing battle. Suddenly he remembered the flight that crash-landed in Sioux City. There was a problem with the tail section and the pilots had to steer the plane by adjusting the engines on each wing. Though it did crash land on the runway, there were survivors. It wasn’t a comforting thought and he kept it to himself.
As the jet pitched one way and then another, its movements became more violent and erratic. There were moans, brief screams and the murmur of conversation in the cabin. Some discussions had grown louder, and Brad could pick out specific voices and sentences of a few passengers with growing worries and opinions. One man yelled, wondering what the hell was going on here? A woman screamed, her piercing voice cutting through the noise with all the sharpness of a razor blade. Everyone kept looking around, studying other faces for some expression of hope and confidence. But every face was drawn with fear and tension. Two babies began crying and their mothers cried along with them.
Suddenly the jet bounced so violently that for a brief moment the wings appeared to flap like a bird’s. There was a sudden drop in altitude and Brad felt the seat belt dig into his lap as he experienced fleeting weightlessness.
“Oh my God, we’re going to die!” Christine shouted. Others in the cabin echoed her words and the sounds of the engines became a distant hum.
“It’s only turbulence. Try not to look out the window. Pick some spot and stare at it.” His words came out in almost a stutter and he thought of Jimmy Stewart. But Jimmy Stewart could talk like that and still sound bold and confident.
He needed to use the bathroom, but wondered if he dared get up. The jet bounced violently again and its nose pitched down, hitting pockets of air as if they were huge rocks in the sky. A person waiting for a vacant lavatory fell to the floor with a grunt. The jet rolled to the right and Brad kept waiting for a correction. He gripped the armrests and waited, but the jet slowly continued its roll. He felt Christine’s weight crushing him as the jet rolled over. The seat belt dug into his lap, squeezing him with a vice-like grip and pushing against a nearly full bladder. People screamed as purses and brief cases rolled along the floor. Change spilled out of purses and scattered across the aircraft. As the plane continued its roll, Christine fell over onto Brad. She reached up and grabbed his shoulders, pushing him further into the aisle. He felt the right armrest dig into his ribs like a dull knife being shoved into him by a terrified mugger. The armrest bent outward against his weight and both Brad and Christine moved further into the aisle.
“My baby!” a mother screamed, and Brad knew what had happened.
The jet continued rolling over. Bodies fell from their seats and flopped against the side of the cabin with dull thuds, the sounds nearly swallowed whole in the noisy chaos. In mere seconds that lasted a lifetime and seemed instant at the same time, the jet was upside down. Brad winced and wanted to scream, and wondered briefly if he was screaming. The cabin was filled with an amalgam of noise, a thick soupy mixture of voices and aircraft noises that confused hearing. Detecting his own voice was done more on vibration than sound, and even that was difficult as the jet shook and shuddered. The cabin had become filled with shouts and moans, screams and crying. The seat belt dug deeper, slamming into his gut like a prizefighter’s punch and he wondered if it would hold. The nose of the jet pointed lower and lower, shoving an intertwined Brad and Christine forward into the back of the next seat. Brad winced and tried to push himself back into his seat, but found the task impossible. He turned his head toward Christine, his face now smashed against the seat back.
Her face was only inches away. He could still smell the sweet perfume she was wearing. Its aroma was so out of place and foreign, yet there was something comforting about it at the same time. He saw the horror on Christine’s face; her skin was pale and drained of blood. Blue veins were visible beneath her skin looking like thin wires. Her eyes were wide, and her facial muscles tensed to the point they looked ready to rip loose. Christine’s mouth was open, and she gasped for air in quick breaths. As the jet accelerated, there was a loud whining noise. Objects flew past him and he heard them land with loud crashes, sometimes accompanied by groans or screams of pain. As the jet accelerated in its nosedive, the seatbelt loosened its knifelike grip. The brief weightlessness caused many passengers to immediately suffer nausea and vomiting. Brad and Christine were lifted into their seats.
Brad couldn’t wait any longer, and let his bladder go. A sudden flash of warmth flooded his lap as the warm urine soaked his pants He wondered briefly if Christine had noticed, and quickly, almost immediately decided it didn’t matter at all.
“Brad! Brad! We’re going to die!” She was shouting, but the sound was cut to a whisper in the noisy cabin.
There were more screams. He caught a glimpse of someone falling forward, their body gliding almost effortlessly along the ceiling that was now the floor. It was such a strange view. Seeing a sight that is so alien plays tricks on the mind, and Brad wondered if they were truly upside down. More objects began falling. He gripped the armrests and watched in horror as purses, books, eyeglasses and countless other objects flew past him with all the force of professionally thrown baseballs. Several magazines flew by, their pages flapping as they sailed past looking ironically like clumsy planes with broken wings.
The whine became louder, like a thousand high-pitched screams as the jet accelerated in its descent. He knew now that there was no hope. No one controlled the jet. It was hostage to the forces of gravity and the fierceness of air currents. He had the answer to the question that everyone considers from time to time, even if only briefly before burying it again beneath layers of denial; He knew how he was going to die and exactly when. It was a fact now, and there was no time for denial or anger or bargaining. The fact of his death had slammed into his thoughts and it wasn’t going to negotiate feelings. In the terrified panic that was strangling his gut, Brad had quickly accepted the fact he was about to die. It only took seconds, and he felt a strange sense of gratitude for that. Maybe it was because there was no choice, but from listening to the screams and panic of many other passengers, he decided that a person always had a choice on how they reacted to any situation. Brad thought of his wife Cheryl, he pictured her face, her smile, the ‘look’ of disapproval that every married man knew, the last time they made love and how it left the sweet smell of the sea in their bed, the smile and kiss she greeted him with, the soft touch of her hands, her beautiful, long feminine nails, the smell of her hair after a shower, his two children Wendy and Jim, their giggles, the goodnight hugs he always cherished, their angelic faces when they slept, how pitiful and yet cute they appeared when they were ill, Christmas mornings and the excitement that filled the whole house, playing Uno and building with Lego and the trip to Disney World. Memories paraded through his mind in an endless string of images. He’d never see any of them again, at least not in this life. He believed in God and Jesus and heaven, but it was so easy to have faith when it wasn’t tested, when there was absolutely no time for denial or bargaining with God. There was simply no time for anything except remembering. It made no sense to spend his last few moments yelling. He winced in pain and wanted to scream, but oddly, as intense as the pain was, seemed tolerable. There was simply no real comfort in screaming or fighting a battle he would lose; there was only comfort in remembering. Suddenly the jet shuddered and a loud ripping sound overstepped all the other noise. Metal creaked and groaned followed immediately by a long screaming EEEEEEEK as the left wing ripped apart and fell away into the sky. The sound pierced his ears like a thousand hot needles. Brad and Christine both looked out the window at where the wing had been. Fuel sprayed out and coated the window dimming the cabin for the briefest of moments, followed immediately by a huge orange fireball. The brief flash of light was blinding and painted the cabin white, but after it subsided, the bright glow of orange flames still flooded the cabin. For the briefest of moments it reminded Brad of the warm bask of a sunset. Flames flickered and waved, and within a few seconds the heat invaded the cabin with its hot breath. The jet began to spin; clouds and patches of blue sky rolled past the window, and suddenly green sections of earth flickered in view. The jet was now flying toward the earth in a corkscrew formation. Flames and smoke trailed along the broken section of wing.
A few passengers screamed louder, but the number had diminished greatly. Dishes and pillows, blankets and purses, cans of soda and beer went sailing through the air like errant missiles, bouncing off the sides of the cabin in strange trajectories caused by the spinning jet. He heard snapping sounds followed by bodies being hurled through the cabin. People slammed into seats, rolled briefly along the sides or the ceiling, hitting with muffled thumps. Sometimes there were groans, but often, the limp bodies simply bounced around like lifeless manikins. The spinning shoved him back into his seat, then pulled him against one armrest, and then the other, then tossed him violently into the seat in front of him and then repeated. He felt Christine’s body hitting him then falling away, and heard the clumps and thuds as her body slammed into one thing after another.
One woman bounced off the ceiling right above them, her foot sliding across his hair, and then just as suddenly the limp body disappeared from view. A briefcase smacked Brad on the side of the head and for a moment, his vision dimmed and tiny points of light floated before his eyes.
“Oh my God, oh my God!” someone yelled.
A woman behind him began reciting the Lord’s Prayer. A man joined her, but there was a crashing noise and his voice was silenced. There were fewer voices now, mostly just groans and whimpers, and the whining sound of a jet streaming toward earth.
The jet continued to spin and objects rolled around on the ceiling for a few moments like clothes in a dryer before spinning off in one direction or another.
“Where’s my baby?” a woman screamed, then just as suddenly, she fell quiet.
By now there were no infants crying, and most voices had been silenced. Brad glanced across the aisle and was surprised to see the three seats still filled, the passengers still alive, all conscious with eyes widened and staring forward like so many deer looking into headlights.
“Oh God help us!” someone yelled.
Another body flew past so quickly, Brad couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman.
“Christine, doÉ youÉ believeÉ inÉ. God?”
She was crying and occasionally a tear spun off and landed on his face.
“YesÉ IÉ do,’ she answered sobbing.
He reached over and grabbed her hand. In the spinning jet, such a small movement was difficult and complicated, like moving in a torrent of water. “At.. leastÉ. IÉ. won’tÉ have.. toÉ feel.. aloneÉ when ÉI Édie.” The spinning motion of the jet and the seatbelt pushing on his chest made his words come out in puffs. “ThankÉ youÉÉ.. forÉ wearing.. AngelÉÉ. today. É.ItÉ. remindedÉÉ.meÉÉ ofÉ.. myÉÉ wife.”
“She’sÉ. luckyÉ toÉ. haveÉ.. you.”
“SheÉ. wasÉ. luckyÉ to.. haveÉ me,” he corrected.
“You’llÉ alwaysÉ .beÉ together... Heaven’sÉ likeÉ that.”
Suddenly there was the loud screech of ripping metal as the other wing sheared off. Another huge orange fireball erupted, filling the cabin with a blinding brightness. The jet seemed to spin faster. The whine of its descent was so intense it created a sharp pain in his ears. He could feel a tingle inside each ear as if his eardrums were vibrating beyond capacity.
“IÉ. hopeÉ. so,” he answered.
“What?” Christine yelled. The noise had made conversation difficult.
“IÉ said, ÉI ..hopeÉ so!” Brad yelled.
The prayer had ended and the cabin was almost void of conversation. Thuds and bangs rattled off like slow gunfire, as objects spun around the cabin sounding like tennis shoes in a dryer. There was an occasional scream or moan, some muffled conversation that sounded like people yelling from inside a styrofoam box. Brad was feeling dizzy from all the spinning, and spots still floated across his vision. He looked out the window at the growing landscape that rapidly spun past. He could see a farm and large green and golden fields that were growing bigger every time they spun past the window. They almost seemed close enough to touch. As the plane spun around the window was filled with green, then gold, then green then gold until it became a blur. He saw treetops not far away before they disappeared.
As the nose of the jet plowed into the field at nearly a ninety-degree angle, the pilot and co-pilot instinctively gripped the armrests and clenched their teeth. The two men crashed into the instrument panel, their faces instantly crushed and erased into a blotch of crimson. The force fractured their skulls into pieces no larger than a nickel, and the mass of bone and flesh merged with the crushing metal and glass. The jet began folding upon itself like a giant accordion. The seats were forcefully ripped from the floor as one row immediately cascaded down upon the next, crushing each passenger with such force that they were as thin as a suit on a hanger. Blood, bone fragments and gray matter that has the consistency of warm jello, sprayed the cabin. Within a fraction of a second, moans and voices were immediately silenced as if some internal voice switch had been flipped. The noise was deafening as the metal crumbled like foil. Brad looked forward, and in that fraction of a second, he saw the forward section of the jet rush toward him with such speed it was mostly a blur and then it was over. In nearly an instant, the entire fuselage crumbled and the metal was shredded into tiny pieces that sprayed across the field or were buried several feet beneath the surface. He heard no sound. He felt a slight sting on his forehead and then all pain and sound was erased. An image of his wife’s face appeared in his mind. It was a frozen image, unmoving like a photograph. In the silence, the image faded like the brightness of a camera flashbulb. But as the brightness faded, and his wife’s image dissolved, it was replaced by blackness as dark as ink. The world had become dark and silent. His skin registered no sensation, no pain or heat. He never felt his arms being pulled from their sockets, or his legs being crushed. The force of the impact was so immense, that a body’s flesh simply disintegrated, appearing much like the spray of a water balloon on a concrete driveway. In the darkness and the silence, Brad saw a very distant, but slowly growing white light. He began to feel something. His skin felt slightly chilled like it did on a cool autumn evening when he went out for a walk without a jacket.
Immediately upon impact, a huge fireball engulfed the entire jet. Instantly the seats melted. Any clothing made of synthetic material dissolved and clung to the skin, causing instant fourth degree burns. In the violent impact muscles were torn from bones. Arms, fingers, heads and torsos were flung forward throughout the cabin in a shower of flesh and debris.
And then there was an eerie silence, except for the soft crackle of the flames that sent black clouds of smoke billowing into the air; smoke that looked so thick that it appeared as if huge wads of black cotton were being flung skyward.
The fire crackled, engulfing everything in an inferno of hell, charring it to a midnight black.
Then there was near silence, broken only by the whisper of the fire. The quiet seemed misplaced, mocking the tragedy that lay within the charred ruins of the jet.
Allan Stiles, an air traffic controller noticed that a blip on his screen suddenly disappeared. The pilot had radioed they were having mechanical problems and that he was descending to a lower altitude. But there had been no panic in his voice, and he requested no emergency flight plan. Allan was very comforted by that for personal reasons. The pilot’s voice had remained calm, in fact, very calm. He kept his radio responses brief, saying only they were busy.
But, Allan knew in his heart the thick lump in his throat was telling him the truth. He knew what flight it was and who was on it. And the fact the jet had disappeared from radar and was not responding to radio calls, confirmed his fears. It was going to be a horrible day, the kind that makes international headlines, and the world would have no real idea what emotional pain the survivors would be suffering. The only thing the world and press would care about would be getting the most graphic pictures they could obtain, and an interview with tears would lead the story. Allan swallowed hard because he knew the truth before the world did, but the world wouldn’t really care nor understand about his personal loss.
Allan thought about the Angel perfume he had purchased yesterday as a gift for his fiancée Christine, one that would never be given.
Next week he would be going to a funeral, not a wedding.
