I gazed out the window of the plane. Snow streamed by, lightly falling on the outside of the fuselage as the craft slowed, preparing to land. I turned away, and pocketed the novel in my hand. Another boring business trip, well underway. The pilot came on over the intercom. “Approaching LaGuardia International, arrival in three minutes. Please fasten your seatbelts, and place your seats in the upright, locked position.” Almost there. I paid little notice to the hissing coming from the engine. It burst into flames, shards of glass flying about. A confused cacophony of noise assaulted my hearing. Screaming, fire, sucking air, and the fluttering of a million sheets of paper. I spun about, frantically grabbing for a handhold, groping in the nothingness for safety. A thick smack resounded as a suitcase hit the back of my head, and the world faded to blackness.
Silence. Everything was suddenly calm. I woke up in the midst of the plane's fuselage, staring face down at the floor. I got up, and expected to see the bodies of my fellow passengers. The plane was empty. The luggage, the people, the chaos was gone. All that remained was the plain, ruined hulk, the lonely upholstery, and a smattering of powdered snow on the carpet, where the engine had ripped a hole in the fuselage. I hoisted myself up, using the seat to boost my aching body. Outside was a road, lined by hedgerows and forest. An impenetrable blanket of white fog, preventing one from seeing more than a block ahead of oneself, choked the landscape. I climbed out of the hole, seeing as nobody was here, and my luggage was gone. Carefully I trekked onward, hoping that salvation lay down this lonely stretch of cracked and worn pavement. I couldn't have been more wrong.
comment / criticize or what have you.
Desertion is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at theassortednonsenseblog.blogspot.com.
0 comments:
Post a Comment