Sky Call

I hadn’t heard my mother’s voice in twenty years. When the flight attendants anxiously told us to call our loved ones, I don’t know why I immediately found her name in my contacts. Elizabeth Shire. It was sitting there taunting me as my plane jerked downwards. My stomach lifted as we made a sharp decline before quickly leveling out again. I felt light as we dawdled in the sky. The masks dropped from the ceiling like marionettes, and I pulled mine over my hair and took slow breaths into it. It smelt like rubber and cleaning chemicals. The red lavatory light flickered green as a young man with a Cubs jersey rushed to the closest open seat. I took a sharp breath.

The elderly woman beside me held an old silver iPhone to her ear and closed her eyes, releasing a tear that slowly cascaded down her wrinkled cheeks.

“Beth?” Her frail voice yelled into the phone above the other panicked voices across the plane. “Beth, please. Can you give the phone to mummy? Please?” Her sunken eyes closed as she released the phone from her ear and saw the number pad. She dialed another number into her phone and began to sob.

“Call someone, sweetheart,” She pressed me urgently. Her phone fell to her lap as all of her calls went unanswered.

My stomach lurched forward as the plane made jagged acrobatics in the air. All of my fingers felt numb as I looked at my phone. Elizabeth Shire. I stared at the green lavatory light and gulped. I pressed “call” and held it to my ear. The whole world felt light as we made another dive in the sky. This was it.

“Hello?” Her voice warmed the phone, and my heartbeat softened. I missed her voice and the comfort I felt. For just a moment, the plane wasn’t plummeting to the Earth.

“Mom,” I breathed. My head felt foggy. My lips felt like static as I spoke to her.

“I told you not to call me again, Maive.”

My own tears made my cheeks feel hot with embarrassment and anger.

“Mom, I love you so much,” I sobbed.

She let out a long breath. “You’re not taki- you didn’t relapse, did you… Do you need money?” Her voice was filled with disappointment. Another breath sounded like static in the phone. “I’m going to call your father. Where a-”

The plane took a harsh turn causing everyone in the cabin to scream.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” The pilot echoed throughout the cabin. We all fell silent. “We are experiencing significant maintenance issues in both of our engines. We are going to have to make an emergency landing in the bay. Please reference your safety pamphlets for further direction as we make contact with the water. The flight attendants will be buckled as we make contact in accordance with their own safety.”

“Are you… are you on a plane right now?”

I took quicker, shallower breaths into the mask as I saw the world become larger below us as we hurdled downwards.

“M-mom,” I shook. My hands were clammy as I clung to the arm rests with all of the strength I had left. “I don’t know h-how long I have l-left.” Tears streamed down my cheeks. “We’re going down. The plane’s going down.”

Her voice began to crackle as the reception changed. “O-- my Go--”.

“They t-told us to c-c-call our loved ones, and I couldn’t call any-anyone else,” I cried. The woman beside me grabbed my hand on the arm rest as the plane took another plunge. She had closed her eyes, praying for it all to go away. “I l-love you so-so much, mom.”

“Maive, I lov-” A silence spilled through the phone into the rest of the plane as we felt the Earth envelop the front of the plane. An explosion ricocheted from the front of the aircraft to the back. I saw the flash of the green bathroom light just before everything went black.