Scene 4

My latest scene assignment. Haven't been writing much for fun lately. So busy. Here was the prompt:

Write about a person who was in a plane crash exactly one year ago.
There are only a few survivors, and he/she is one of them. Explain what
this person does, thinks, and says on the one year anniversary of the
crash. Include some dialogue, but no more than five lines.

August. The Twenty second. Two-thousand and eight. I wake up, roll over and glance at the alarm clock. It started ringing right on time. Like usual. Pull back the sheets. Stand up. Glance behind me. My wife is still sleeping soundly, she learned more than awhile ago to sleep through the sound of my alarm. I walk to the closet. Blue shirt, socks, shoes, and black pants. Put them on one leg at a time like every morning. Adjust my tie. I run my hand over my face. Should shave today. Not going to. I brush my teeth twice instead, watching my mix of water, saliva and colored fluoride circle the drain and disappear. Wallet, cellphone, and keys are all in my pocket. I'm ready. One step at a time.

I open the door and lock it behind me. No time for breakfast. Never any time for breakfast. I let the car idle for a few moments. I reach for the air conditioner. The earlier you turn it on the better it runs. At least I always felt so. I look out the window towards the sky. Mistake. Hundreds of miles above, a life time away, I can see a plane flying by. I try not to let the memories in, but they flood me. My hand starts to shake intensely and the heat is accidentally flipped on. Fire. Blood. Screams. I close my eyes and press my hands against my ears. In a brief second everything comes back.

My head hurt so bad. My ears were ringing. The ground below me felt stiffer than I had ever imagined. I couldn't seem to move except for my left arm. I moved it to feel my head and felt blood. The last thing I remembered was a fasten seatbelt sign lighting up in the cabin. Screams. I could remember them too. Or maybe they were happening then. People wanted help, people were dying. Then everything went black.

Then came the people who wanted to know. I was interviewed. Questioned. Put on TV. But I had nothing to say. Therapy, pills, people who wanted to help, all of them came to me. Eventually, long after the dust had settled, people began to forget and I felt I could too. As people stopped coming to talk to me, I finally was alone.

The heat is starting to get to me. My eyes flash towards the clock. “Shit. Late.” I turn the air to full blast and switch the car into reverse. As I get near the highway it looks like there's a traffic jam. I turn on the radio and a song from when I was a teenager pops on. I bob my head slowly along with the chorus and wait for the traffic to let up.