I waded through the wreckage, fringes of my skirt catching in the edges around me. The plane crashed, they said. We all died on the way to Bali. Ironical, then, that I'm still standing. The hollowness in my stomach tells me I'm not yet dead. The bodies around me say everyone else is.
There's a child's hand sticking out of the carnage, and I walk over to it. Hold it. Try to give it the solace it'll never have again. What happened here?? What mad hand of fate knocked a Dreamliner out of the sky like a gnat? Maybe no one knows. I say a quick prayer for the dead.
I'm not looking for food as I continue walking, but I find it anyway. It's mostly charred and on the ground, but needy hands shove what they find into grasping mouths and clenching stomachs. We are sated now. I continue walking.
There's a radio squawking in the wreckage and my attention is drawn to it. It speaks of a rescue, it screams for survivors. People are crying over spilt milk and crashed planes. I might tell them I lived. I might ask for help. But not now. For now I must see.
From one end to the other, I make my way across the aisle. Masks strew the way and bodies litter under my feet. The occasional burning patch or sharp metal slices and hurts them. But is that any less than what I deserve? I'm humming to myself now, a childhood lullaby my nanny would sing. PTSD, the doctors would call it. I'm not sure what I'd call it anymore.
My hand skims over the burning flesh of the pilot again when I complete my tour. He was a nice man, now that I think about it. My mother certainly thought so when she married him. I wonder why she never listened to my cries for help when he 'held' me at night, though? Maybe she thought I was having nightmares. Maybe she didn't know he was my nightmare, every day, from the day I turned 11.
I pick up the radio, breathless with the tears that shine through my smile. "I'm alive... ", I whisper into it. "Come save me". They'll listen this time.
There's a child's hand sticking out of the carnage, and I walk over to it. Hold it. Try to give it the solace it'll never have again. What happened here?? What mad hand of fate knocked a Dreamliner out of the sky like a gnat? Maybe no one knows. I say a quick prayer for the dead.
I'm not looking for food as I continue walking, but I find it anyway. It's mostly charred and on the ground, but needy hands shove what they find into grasping mouths and clenching stomachs. We are sated now. I continue walking.
There's a radio squawking in the wreckage and my attention is drawn to it. It speaks of a rescue, it screams for survivors. People are crying over spilt milk and crashed planes. I might tell them I lived. I might ask for help. But not now. For now I must see.
From one end to the other, I make my way across the aisle. Masks strew the way and bodies litter under my feet. The occasional burning patch or sharp metal slices and hurts them. But is that any less than what I deserve? I'm humming to myself now, a childhood lullaby my nanny would sing. PTSD, the doctors would call it. I'm not sure what I'd call it anymore.
My hand skims over the burning flesh of the pilot again when I complete my tour. He was a nice man, now that I think about it. My mother certainly thought so when she married him. I wonder why she never listened to my cries for help when he 'held' me at night, though? Maybe she thought I was having nightmares. Maybe she didn't know he was my nightmare, every day, from the day I turned 11.
I pick up the radio, breathless with the tears that shine through my smile. "I'm alive... ", I whisper into it. "Come save me". They'll listen this time.
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