Up ten thousand miles in the air, and the only thing settling me is the three doubles of Jack Daniel’s I had in the first class lounge before boarding. In an airplane with a hundred sixty people, it’s still oddly all lonely. Being by my lonesome self despite the company; this was the theme of my so-called life the last few days. I’m off to the Korea and all She is all I can think about.
I know it’s over, but I just SMSed her, just in case destiny decides otherwise that I am not destined for greatness, or simply if the plane crashed. This was the only insurance I’ve set myself up for recently; the rest were astoundingly all risks.
I was out of character the last few months, and this action proved the trend. For the sure shot, I gambled a lot lately. The only thing that reflected who I am was my impeccable choosing of going for broke, since I always had nothing to begin with, nothing to lose. Apparently, there was everything to lose in love, and no amount of number crunching could have determined the outcome. Now, despite the faux paux company, I am as separated from the world as I can get. Like the scene from Superman Returns, where he flies high to watch from afar the travails of the world, I feel that sense of detachment and freedom, but at the same time the same sense of responsibility.
I always felt I owed it to more than myself to be the vanguard of people’s dreams. I’ve realized over the years I’ve never had my own dream. I was someone who was dictated what I wanted in life; a good decent living, a loving family, some sense of self-respect and maybe, just maybe, a dream, or the dream. I, in all honestly, have neither of the last two. I discovered recently I am just a big ball of clay; highly impressionable but neither with enough gusto or talent to shape my own destiny for myself. I am the extreme form of mediocrity; I absorb lexicon and mannerism; the penultimate culture vulture if you will. I maybe in the truest sense a great copycat, but in all truth am not filled with any of the perceived originality either. I am a soulless drifter going through my boring prolonged soap opera of a life and the only true high points is my guest starring in the lives of passers-by I meet on the road with far more interesting lives. Why am I here, being benched in the air; I get a break from it all. And this is not helping me, at all. Really. I’m dry on material; I need inspiration. I need her. I’m afraid one day I lose all the griping and the loneliness I won’t have anything to write about. This would mean I actually exhausted her, and that is truthfully what fears me. I don’t want to lose her completely. The memory of her lips and the broken, cruel smile of hers is all I have left of her. If I exhaust that; if I replace the doubting with the indifference, I end up just like her. I am soulless enough as it is. The last thing I want to become is heartless. The turbulence that is stirring the plane is disturbing my heart. What if the numbness does get in; the cancer that is her memory, burrowing deeper into me, is magically replaced with the healing done by time and a clearer mind. I don’t want to erase her from my memory. I want to fight changing. I want to stay here; vulnerable and with so much love. I know I tried my best to reach her. Will I reach me?
Oh no.
No time for that.
The plane is starting to tremble uncontrollably. The flight attendants serving the after-meal teas and coffees are spilling the drinks all over the place, tumbling all over as the overhead compartments open and throw bags to the ground. The sleeping Welshman beside me opens his eyes and along with the others, screams for help. The chaos all around seems all too orchestrated; a mix between a well-choreographed dance and a well-planned sequence shot. Everything is happening so fast and yet I manage to see everything unfold; the seat belt signs light up, the croaking of the captain’s voice as he masks in his nervous voice the reality of the end announcing everyone to brace themselves, the drowning shrieks of everyone from the crying, ignorant baby two rows up front to the wailing mother and daughter at the exit rows opposite me. I feel my stomach level with my chest, the lightning bolt that glowed gold that I witnessed up close on my left window milliseconds ago apparently hit us hard. We were descending uncontrollably, down spiraling instead as the Captain tried to tussle the plane, one-wing bad and two-engines dead.
The plane I feel hits the water, tossing the two flight attendants, one the aged Purser forward and brushing him hard against the seats in front of me, and the other, younger lady thrown backward, barely seeing her slam into the ceiling before rolling to the toilets at the back. The plane stirs the crashing waves, the waters matching the frenzied pace of the harsh winds outside. With all the high-tech weather forecasting systems, our planes falls smack in the middle of a thunderstorm. My sarcasm is short lived as I remember to open the airplane’s doors as the lights on the plane’s floors light up. I give a quick look to my right, being seated window side by the plane’s middles section, by the wing. I see the old man to my right and his son to his right out of it. The passengers opposite us are the same. Being the able bodied one and oddly with the presence of mind, I unbuckle my seatbelt. I tried to look at the instructions on the emergency exit door on how to open it in case these things did happen. I should have paid more attention to the safety video at the beginning I told myself, as I tried to yank the lever in the direction the red tape dictated. Clock wise you idiot, not counter clockwise, I mumbled to myself after figuring out the information on the glow-in-the-dark sticker on the pale, red lighting. As I push out the door, I realize too late my error as the sea pushes hard on the door and suddenly fills the hull to the brim, putting us more in danger. I couldn’t close it in time. The cold water was now after a second to my knees, and I could see the few that were conscious stand up frantically and grab the lifejackets beneath their seats. I scramble to do the same. As I manage to barely put my partially inflated jacket on, the plane’s left middle door is yanked outward by the cruel sea, giving me just the right amount of time to instantaneously take a deep breath as my jackets fully inflates after a quick tug on my end. I am forced outward by the waves; maybe the vacuum of the sinking and the plane’s tossing. As I notice my emergency light blink, I notice a few others outside like me, maybe from the door up front by business class.
We were all tossed in the high seas, and it was too late before I saw the crescent of this rouge wave hit me away from the other waves crashing me outward the plane. I am hit against the door I opened moments ago. I feel nauseous as I drink the seawater and smell the faint metallic odor of my blood, now streaming down my face after breaking my nose. I have trouble breathing with both my mouth and my nose now, both airways drowned in blood and salt water. As I try in all futility to flail my arms and stir me upward, I feel little by little my strength leave me. The dark sky that towered over me as well as the brutal waves following suit seemed like an ominous nightmare, only the terrible chill of the hard wind and the brash waters reminding me otherwise. I try hard to stay afloat; the situation seemingly growing drearier. The darkness that enveloped me was approaching faster, the cool that came with it grew incredulously more bitter. I felt her warmth for a second. Then just like that, it fleeted.
