Shooting Down Heaven by Jorge Franco

Author:Jorge Franco
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Europa Editions
Published: 2020-04-08T14:33:48+00:00

40

Charlie waited three minutes to make sure Larry hadn’t gone to the bathroom too, or maybe was in the back looking for something for her headache. But five, fifteen minutes passed, and Larry didn’t show. He’d left his seat so tidy, it looked like it had been unoccupied for the entire flight. Pillow, blanket, headphones all neatly in place. She turned around to look for him a few times but couldn’t see the back rows. When she decided to go find him, she was blocked by the carts handing out breakfast. A flight attendant pulled down her tray table, and Charlie told her she didn’t want breakfast.

“Not even coffee?” the flight attendant asked. Charlie shook her head.

All I want is a drink . . .

And she wanted Larry by her side; she wasn’t ready to land in Colombia alone.

What was it that chased him away? Did my alcoholic past scare him off? . . .

For the first time the whole flight, she thought about Flynn and recalled that at one point she’d nearly invited him to come with her on this trip. She’d decided against it because she was becoming increasingly doubtful about her feelings for him. It was best to put some land between them, or ocean, at least for a while. But she wanted him by her side now, wished he were there to console her, to face the arrival with her and help her make her connecting flight to Medellín, to do for her what she felt unable to do herself.

He wouldn’t have let me drink, and I wouldn’t be wanting so badly to have another one . . .

She felt rage. It felt unfair that Larry had left. Larry wasn’t Flynn, but he was somebody. She looked back again, and the service carts were still in the way. She brought a glass to her lips; it was empty, full only of fingerprints. From one of the seat pockets she pulled out two mini bottles of gin, two among the many they’d drunk, but they were empty too. Not a dreg, not a drop—even the smell had evaporated.

She lifted her feet, wrapped her arms around her knees, and cried a good long while. Her neighbors glanced at her a few times while finishing their breakfasts. Images and sounds of her father when he was alive kept flooding her memory. Him with her, with her mother, alone, with the whole family. More and more memories that caged her in grief and despair. She decided to go get a glass of wine, anything, even if she had to beg the flight attendant. But when she tried to get up, she couldn’t. Her feet didn’t respond, nor her arms to support her, nor her voice to ask for help. With effort, she was able to move her eyes, and when she looked across the aisle she saw her neighbor cleaning up a bit of egg that had fallen on his shirt. She saw the white lights on the ceiling,

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