Pay Load

My grip’s slipping on the metal bar I’m holding onto. The bar stretches beyond the horizon, imposibly far. I look down at a deep hole hundreds of miles below me, the edges of the hole move in and down like it’s consuming everything outside it. A black hole…my stomach falls out from below me. My legs are filling with lead. In my panic I open my mouth and bite down on the bar…the sound of my teeth cracking and the taste of rust…

…

Wakes me up to my situation.

I’m still in the cockpit. My face is crushed against the counsel. I reach over to grab my co-pilots arm but Peter has a branch through his neck. Everything looks like sleek oil in the shade of the tree I’m in. I can hear something dripping into water so I turn to look back down into the plane, but it’s gone. Peter’s blood is dripping down into a river that flows below us…below me.

I can’t remember where I am or what my pay load was. I had two passengers. They were traveling with the payload.

Where am I?

It’s hot and muggy here. The sounds are tropical.

I’m in Argentina!

I still don’t remember what the payload was.

What happened? What the fuck happened? I have never had any trouble with these routes. No storms. There were no storms…I always check the radar…I will never fly in a storm again.

I know this. Why am I so sure I would not fly in a storm?

I look around the cockpit and notice sunlight peeking through some holes in the roof. They look like bullet holes. I shift and feel my right foot sticking to the floor and inside my shoe. A sharp pain shoots from my foot to my brain.

I look down and see holes in the floor and a bloody hole on the top of my foot.

“I’ve been shot!? What the fuck was my payload!?”

I grab my chest knife and cut my belt loose then turn to get up and I slip.

As I fall down toward the water, the sky falls perfectly down away from me, while I fall up into it. As I plunge into the water I feel my legs heavy as metal, but I kick and kick. I manage to grab a root and pull myself to a secure holding.

I can barely breath, my body feels so heavy. I can’t hear much. It’s all like a dream.

I feel around my mouth with my tongue and confirm that two of my front teeth are cracked. Taste of rust.

I can hear everything all at once and separately. I hear the dry buzz of electronics in the cockpit, the drops of life from Peter, the sounds of birds bugs and current rushing by.

I can hear the sound of a wooden drum. A deep hollow drum.

I scan and find it, stuck between a half sunken tree and thick vines.

The pay load.

I have to use the roots and vines to make my way up river to get to it.

I climb up above it and look down into it.

The casket, wide open and empty except for hundreds of wet marigold flowers. They bob up and down, back and forth. The rhythm of the river and their small pockets of water match perfectly.

There were no storms today.

I have been shot.

We were shot down.

“Who was in the casket?”

Who?