The Measure of Sorrow by J. Ashley-Smith

Author:J. Ashley-Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Meerkat Press
Published: 2023-01-29T14:00:16+00:00

The Face God Gave

They were somewhere between LAX and Sydney, way out over the Pacific Ocean, when the plane hit rough air. The boys were both asleep, finally, and Karen lay in a waking doze, drained of all energy yet too wired to submit to sleep.

It was a relief to see them unconscious. They’d been awake so long, passed through so many time zones, that both boys had lost it completely. They had become so feral that even the endless loop of movies and TV no longer subdued them. But now Dylan was curled beside her with his head in her lap, snuggled under the airline blanket, one small, sock-less foot poking out from beneath. Torin lay rigid as a plank, mouth wide, with his head against the window blind. The arm of Karen’s seat was up and dug painfully into her shoulder with the sudden dip and shudder of the plane.

Karen had never before confessed this to herself, but she was terrified of flying. For the sake of the boys, she had pressed down her true feelings, wore a brave expression she hoped concealed how tightly she gripped the armrest as the plane peeled from the runway, how her belly churned each time, as now, they hit a bad patch of turbulence.

Her TV screen showed a pixelated map of their location. The plane icon was hemmed in by rippled shades of blue. There was nothing beneath them but air; and, beneath that, only water. Karen forced herself to breathe slow and deep, suppressing the panic that tugged at her insides, that forced her to picture each of the ten-or-more-thousand meters between the plane and the ocean. The limitless void of black waves. The chill, fathomless depths.

The plane shook again and Karen felt her stomach drop, the sickening feeling of weightlessness. She clenched her fists, counted backward from ten. The cabin was dimmed for nighttime and, apart from the few insomniacs with their glimmering screens, most of the passengers were slumped beneath cheap blankets and eyeshades in restless sleep. No one but Karen seemed concerned by the lurching, rolling motions of the plane.

Something changed in the movements then. Something sudden and sick making.

The plane banked hard to the right and the cabin tilted sharply down. Bags slid out from under seats. Untethered headphones skittered down the aisle. Torin’s head bumped the window-blind and he woke with a jerk, yanked off his eyeshade, searching for Karen. She reached out to comfort him, but even that small movement almost pulled her from the seat. She gripped the outside armrest, clutched at the stirring Dylan with her free hand, looked to Torin with eyes she hoped betrayed none of her panic.

They were dropping, the plane in a mad spin. Karen couldn’t see it, but she could feel it, in her guts, in her madly popping ears. People were waking now, yelling, trying to stand but pulled back into their seats by the plane’s relentless drag. A voice squelched over the Tannoy, words lost in the din from whining engines, from frightened passengers.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.