Desert of the Soul

Illuminating the sleek corridors in the plane’s shiny interior, the bright overhead lights momentarily flickered causing a collective gasp of panic in the already nervous passengers. The large aircraft swayed in the wind, temporarily inviting me to envision the sun-soaked days of my childhood, before the unsteady goblet tumbled from the flimsy dining tray, cascading droplets of golden liquid onto the vibrating floor.

Plunged into darkness with a type of sudden finality, the gears on the powerful airbus made a type of screeching sound. The inside of the aircraft echoed the noise as if mocking the situation. My mind couldn’t help but to envision a sleek and elegant Siamese cat, hissing and clawing its way through the plane. An odd and utterly stupid thought before a tragic death, I know, but I was always prone to nonsense when faced with the realities of danger.

White knuckled, I gripped the armrest as the light just over my cramped seat illuminated like a lighthouse calling a damaged ship to port. I knew the safety precaution would be futile, but the scintilla of hope that resided deep within my essence forced me to do as I was instructed. With trembling hands, I fixed the strap tightly around my lap, feeling my pulse reach its crescendo as my breath became labored.

Reaching for my phone, the item that normally plagued me with its alarms and whistles, I hastily read the instructions. Denial assaulted my brain once again as I pondered the myriad of music that would certainly be available in Death Valley, California. With a harsh and lumbering jolt, my body was flung into the material of the seat in front of me. Hands frenziedly reached for the plastic masks that now dangled. Feeling my own fingernail scrape my skin, I caused small droplets of blood to surface as I shoved the device over my head.

Without warning, the panic that had ripped through my body only seconds before transcended into a strange and giddy humor. An uncontrollable laugh escaped my throat as my stomach lurched with the sensation of our frantic descent. Despite all our grand technological advances, we were crashing into one of the most inhospitable environments on this planet, I pondered, as I felt my lucid reality descend into the midnight of unconsciousness.

A flash of light stabbed into my core and seemed to twist its agonizing blade into my pounding head as my eyes slowly opened. My body was immersed in the merciless heat of this rough land, and I became acutely aware of the suffocating temperature on the exposed skin of my face. Focusing on the shattered glass of the window, I quickly removed my suit jacket to try to create a barrier between myself and the blazing sun.

A deep gash in my leg covered the fabric of the mangled seat in a sheet of blood. Wincing, I tied my silk button down dress shirt tightly across my swollen and damaged limb as I slowly attempted to stand, steadying myself on the seat in front of me. Noticing the passenger beside of me, a middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair, I tentatively checked for a pulse, choosing to ignore truth to preserve my own sanity.

“Hello,” I screamed as I listened to the silence surrounding me. My hope slowly dwindled like a flame without oxygen as I raised my voice, “Can anyone hear me?”

Making my way to the cockpit, I desperately clung to the notion that someone else would have survived the horrible wreckage, but as I looked around the twisted remains of the A330, my heart sank to the pit of despair. Lifeless bodies were strewn throughout the aisle and slung over seats like discarded and crushed paper dolls.

A metallic taste gathered in the back of my throat, sending waves of tingling nausea through me. My head contained its own tormenting heartbeat, a pulse that embodied all the power of Thor’s hammer, which descended on my brain with reckless abandon. Ignoring my tongue, which had the gritty consistency of dehydrated sandpaper, I lumbered to the front of the plane.

Pushing open the heavy door with all the force that my fragile state would allow, I discovered the captain with his pilot’s uniform covered in blood as a shard of glass penetrated the soft flesh of his abdomen. I’m not sure if the sounds of his ragged and tormented breathing comforted me or sent me into a state of turbulent panic. I saw myself charge towards him as if this were a nightmare that wouldn’t end. Picking up his cold and sweat-laden hand, I tried to formulate comforting words, but as every syllable of my vocabulary seemed to vanish in that one fleeting moment of his ultimate demise, I merely stared at him as if glued to the floor itself.

“My name’s Aiden,” I began slowly, trying unsuccessfully to hold back the deluge of tears that now threatened to collapse my entire being. I continued, trying to steady my cracking and emotion-choked voice, “We’ll be home soon. I promise.”

A slight and knowing smile crept on the man’s ashen face as he forced himself to breathe through his obvious anguish. Slowly becoming less heavy, his breath took on a more automatic and routine fashion as my fingers felt squeezed in his grip. In a frenzy, I reached for the mouthpiece of the controller with my free hand as he gurgled as if he was choking on some liquid.

I screamed into the lifeless gadget, “We need help now,” only to be met by the constant silence that reverberated around the wreckage.

Collapsing into a fit of tears by the corpse, a man who was alive merely seconds ago, I let the tremendous fear and hopelessness flow through me like gushes of water escaping a broken dam. The fragile nature of life assaulted my injured head as a bright pain, like the fire from molten lava, made me whimper. I slowly drudged myself from the damaged plane floor, made my way to the service counter, and gulped the one unbusted bottle of water with all the greed of a thoughtless child. The liquid sent waves of pleasure through my broken body as the glowing and hot discomfort in my head momentarily subsided.

I staggered into the openness of the sand covered and immense desert as the sun assaulted my exposed skin. An egg, broken from the protectiveness of its shell, into a sizzling frying pan must feel like this, I reluctantly thought as I urgently looked for any signs of life. The fiery wind echoed my persistent cries as it mockingly threw the gritty sand into my face. The realization of my own fragile existence was a metaphorical punch in the ribs. It didn’t matter what I had done in this life as the desert enfolded me in its blazing clutches. Engulfed in the desert's parched silence, I was nothing but another grain of sand in the wind.