Entrée DM 106

The overnight flight cruising at thirty thousand feet was humming along peacefully and evenly. Andrew Cooper was slumbering quietly in his seat. His brother had driven him to the airport, envying his trip. He would have loved to be on that plane, but his project was entering a critical phase and he couldn’t possibly afford to be away. Perhaps some other time, they told each other when they said their good-byes at the airport.

Andrew suddenly awoke to the sound of a slight tremor shuddering through the plane. Nobody else seemed to have noticed it. Perhaps it was just a minor disturbance, but he always knew when something was going to happen, and he was rarely wrong. Few accidents happened for no reason, most of them did, one of those idiosyncrasies. They existed for no other reason than to give people something to think about and try - in vain - to incorporate into their psyche.

Without any further warning, the plane went into a nose-dive, as if to indicate that a machine like that shouldn’t be way up in the sky in the middle of the night. The plane came to life with lights and loudspeakers and screaming passengers. Of course Andrew already knew about the disaster, so he didn’t need to scream. All he thought about was how grateful he was that he didn’t take his brother with him.

His brother heard about the disaster on the radio as soon as he woke up. He dressed quickly, jumped into his car, and raced along the highway towards the airport to get the details. Yet his own fate was already sealed, had been ever since the plane had shuddered in the air. The wall of flames from the exploding tanker shot up in front of him before he could think. He did slam on his brakes, but his car just kept sliding and sliding until it was sucked into the flames.