Landing Part One The Cessna 172 landed with a sickening crunch on the chosen flat expanse of cold, heartless rock. The plane slid forever till finally, whipped about by the wind, ground looping, turning a circle and skidding sideways it somehow came to a stop, throwing both of them violently back against the seats, the belts restraining them. When the sickening crunch of tired brakes came, they sat silently, somehow, still upright even if the interior and the controls snapped and shattered. Agony screamed through the pilot as he was flung back in his seat. His foot was caught under something collapsing. Laura Miller, his long-time trusted and faithful passenger lay stunned for only a second; the world finished reeling, the air grew chill, and suddenly it was imperative that they get out. The fuel in the wing tanks might ignite any minute! No one thought to think that this wouldn�t happen in the piercing cold of this place. Jeff was almost pushed up into her lap, she could feel his labored breathing, his head pinned onto her shoulder, the panels and the dash both crushed, making movement impossible. In this terribly intimate setting, his hand was crushed under her knee, his head turned so that his anguished agonized cries emitted near her ear, almost like the parody of a lover�s gentle cooing. Laura could turn her head to see shattered Plexiglas, crushed door handles sticking dangerously out near her, the biting cold slowly eating away at their strength. �Your hand!� she said, �where is your left hand.� �Under my left leg,� he groaned. �It�s my foot. I can�t feel my right foot. It�s crushed. It�s caught under something.� The weight of the slightly built pilot crushing against her shoulder seemed twice as heavy only because it pinned her in place. Her own feet were crushed beneath something, turned at a strange angle, perhaps an angle that saved them from fracture. �The transponder,� moaned the pilot, �I don�t think it�s working!� At the moment of impact Jeff�s cell phone had slipped out of his pocket, where he kept it for emergencies. She waited till he recovered his breath after the next spasm of pain, his eyes filled with tears and then he continued. �I�ve lost the phone.� His voice trailed off in resignation, pain superceding his determination and causing his voice to choke in his throat. Can you call them?� �I�ll try.� Laura felt something stabbing into her left hip. She half expected the plane to move, to resettle itself, but it had been clear from the sky that this was a flat rock and so now she slowly worked her left hand into the space and felt blindly for what bothered her. She slid her hand very slowly under the pilot�s side, tried to gently move at some kind of angle, was stopped by something protruding into her left side. Her hand closed upon the metal of the buckle. Amazing, she thought, in a piece of light weight equipment meant for flying a belt had stayed in place. It did not occur to her that the sturdy configuration of such a belt may have saved her life. She pulled up on it, it fell away as if waiting for release. �Damn it!� shrieked the pilot almost incoherent. �Stop. Don�t touch me.� Laura turned her head slightly, saw his face; his head had fallen limply onto her shoulder; he had lost consciousness. She breathed a sigh of relief. The phone! She felt for it in her right pocket; what had caused the little fragile device to stay where it was while his had fallen beneath the pedals? the phone. Somehow it was still in place. There was one problem. She only had one hand to use for the cell phone. Jeff�s body was pinned against her left hand, her fingers almost protruding into the small of his back; she could feel his labored movements, he worked against another spasm of agony. She could feel the fingers under her knee; his hand was locked into position and would be no use unless she could move even the slightest bit and moving would probably mean sending him into fresh agony. A calm descended over her; a calm that had prevailed for all of her young life and now she slowly pulled out the phone and laid it on her breast. If she could put it into another position it might work better, so she took the phone and laid it now on Jeff�s shoulder so that she could extend her arm and push the buttons with her right hand. It took her a moment to locate the keypad and then she slowly pushed the three crucial numbers and told the operator she was with her friend who was a pilot and they had landed here and he was gravely injured and could someone please hurry. They wanted to know if she could give a position and she tried to rouse him, but it was no use. The instrument panel was useless, the fragile plastic shattered into a million slivers at the pilot�s crushed feet. Even if she had been able to read them and get a fix from the navigational system that now lay stranded on the rock, they would have been of no use. The only way to know where they were was the transponder that he feared was no longer operative, or the weak signal that emitted from her cell phone. Luckily for her and for him she had fully charged it before going on this flight. The operator stayed connected with her and someone was able to trace them by the cell phone in her hand. But it took a while and she knew that the pilot would freeze because he was so cold. Laura turned her head to see what she could see and found that the front controls pinned him in; there was no way he would move. If she could just get him situated into the seat off of her shoulder she may be able to place her body over his and shield him from the cold. She very slowly tested her own body for pain; there was some and she found it as she very slowly and gently turned to the left. Mercifully he did not cry out when she freed his hand from under her body. She found it was easier than she had expected and soon she had him crossways on the seat which was now pushed back into the back row. She would be unable to move his feet. She freed his hand and reached across him, her breasts gently brushing his chest. She found the wrist and fingers of his other hand crushed beneath him and with some surge of strength she thought barely possible she gently freed it. She positioned the hand across his thigh, and noticed the odd angle of his knee. She wouldn�t think of the blood he was losing or try to do anything that would cause him agony. She moved slowly and painfully till she lay across his body, easing her hands around him, putting her head on his chest, breathing her warmth onto his cold, chapped skin. Now all that was left to do was wait. The phone lay beside her, the pilot breathed in merciful unconsciousness and she waited. Time passed. He cried out; something in his delirium and she knew that he was fevered. But she could not move to see what ailed him, only lay like this giving him warmth. His breath seemed to fall on her in some delirious phrase and he called out his number and then he said something that made her cold blood run even colder. �Melanie!� He was wracked by chills that didn�t come from the cold, and then his voice trailed off into the darkness, lost in the wind that chilled them. She tried to rap herself about him; she knew that he had only the thin possibility of living if he could stay warm, but then he withdrew even deeper into himself and called the girl�s name again, and fell silent. Occasionally, responding to some unseen pain, he would move under her in some parody of a lover�s dance and cry out, and just when she thought he could bare it no longer the sounds of rotor blades came to them from a distance. The helicopter crewmen worked quickly. They found her shielding him. First they took her from the pilot�s chest; they lifted her into the helicopter. She hadn�t noticed that her face had been cut and that blood had frozen into her hair and onto her eyebrows. Even pressing her head against him had only warmed it slightly and there was more blood on his shirt; blood that was not his; blood that was hers. But her own ankles were bruised if not fractured and they were cut and bleeding. Suddenly, after all the anxiety, she could feel pain. A woman sat in the helicopter; she did not recognize her. The small woman with a gentle smile looked down at the injured woman as the crewmen gently laid the injured pilot beside her. He had an IV drip that dripped pain-deadening narcotics into his veins. His head fell against Laura�s shoulder. The woman sitting on the bench seat looked kindly at him. He seemed to be asleep but then he opened heavy-lidded, gentle brown eyes, and turned them in her direction. �My plane,� he breathed, and she leaned toward him to catch his words. She looked out of the window at the wrecked pieces of metal that someone was looking at. �Gone,� he moaned weakly, closing his eyes. Then he opened them and seemed to turn them to the woman who had spoken to him. �Mel!� His lips formed the word from a thick haze of medicine. �Melanie!�
Copyright © 2004 Shelley J Alongi |