The white veins flashed in the sky, revealing the edges of the clouds for only a moment, massive walls of bluish-grey lighting up like lanterns. Then it was darkness outside once again. Inside, there was the low orange glow of numbers and dashes in the instrument panel and the sad hum of machinery. On this dark and stormy night, and most of his nights alone, he could not stop thinking about her. All the things he wanted to say, hated himself for saying, and even things that he always said to her every day, all swam in his head. They never stopped, whether he was flying or in bed, asleep or awake. In the rare moments when he did get some sleep, he dreamed of her.
She could walk again, and a little girl joyfully drew pictures with crayons in the sunlit living room. Though the dream brought relief, when he awoke alone before sunrise, he knew it was only a dream, and that is what hurt the most. It had happened again this morning. He had kissed his wife and thanked her for making coffee. The little girl dropped her crayons to hug him before he opened the door and left. Her eyes looked just like hers. Suddenly, all went dark, and when he opened his eyes, he saw the ceiling of his room, just barely lit by the half-moon. He then tried to go back to sleep, hoping to grasp the fleeting memory of the dream and revive it. He also had to be up again in two hours.
A bang at the windshield startled the pilot. Raindrops dotted and streamed on the windshield, as hail tapped the glass furiously. He could feel the plane shake, and a pulse of lightning illuminated the cracks in the windshield. Before the flight, he knew the weather was going to get rough, however, he thought he was flying through the most mild part of the storm. It was then he realized he must have made a mistake in reading the radar, inaccurate because of the water in the air.
As they flew in the turbulent darkness in the worst part of the thunderstorm, they lost both engines. Water in the engines, he thought. As the crew tried to restart the engines, he spoke to the passengers, telling of the dire situation they were in. He was prepared to make a forced landing, and on this route and at this time, he knew there was nothing but the ocean underneath them. Black above and black below, they fell. In the chaos, he thought of her again. Maybe I’m dreaming, the pilot thought, the sunshine will wake me up and I’ll be in her arms again.
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