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ONLY LAUGH WHEN IT HURTS
By Wayne Webb
CHAPTER 32
His eyes flickered
open and the all too familiar sensation of rising through water was
there, but this was real. He knew it was real, could feel the reality
above everything else. When he had dreamed of drowning he had a sense
that it could be real, but not as he felt the immense weight of the
ocean and the fire in his chest as he ran out of air, this was the
reality he had never encountered until now. He had control of his
limbs and could see the light playing on the water's surface above
him, how far he did not know. He could only have been out for a few
seconds as he hit the water, because he was not dead yet.
He wanted to live,
the strength of his arms and legs were powered by that survival
instinct pushing him up, propelling towards the surface for what must
have been minutes at most, seconds more likely but in the caving of
his chest to the airless pressure, what felt like hours through a red
haze around the corners of his eyes.
He broke the
surface, nothing like the dreams he had been having, gasping and
flailing about for air and purchase on anything at all to stabilise
himself. He took in water and choked on it spitting it out again and
trying to draw in more air, even though each lungful burned as bad as
the lack of oxygen had in his chest seconds ago. The whiskey bottle
was still gripped hard in his hand and he looked at it dumbly for
half a second before throwing it away, landing with a splash but
bobbing up and down in the water a few feet away at the liquid level
with the sea.
It took a little
while, paddling furiously, too calm down and right the breathing he
had been denied a moment ago, and then he slowed down and bobbed, in
rhythm with the half empty bottle of scotch in the water. He took a
couple of lazy strokes towards it and plucked it out of the sea
again. Opened it carefully and drained a more than generous
proportion into his mouth, the action ducking him back in the water,
but only momentarily and with little care.
The golden glow of
heat flowed from his chest and throat outwards and the familiar
nature of the alcohol calmed his mind as much as affected his nerves
and body. He screwed the top back on the bottle, hoping to not get
any brine from the ocean in the whiskey, but that was not likely. The
salt water in every pore and on his tongue was the pervasive taste to
everything now.
He could hear
voices, they echoed oddly to him, bouncing off the surface of the
waves. They were distinct in their personality but indistinct in the
content of whatever they were saying. He spun around in the water but
could not seem to see where they were in relation to himself. As he
tunred full circle he could see the plane, broken and slowly edging
into the water, pieces of it breaking off and spreading on the
surface. Cushions from the seats were floating, as were a number of
life jackets, un-inflated of course but floating flat on the waves.
They were spread over a large are that he could see. He swam towards
one slowly, grabbing cushions and other detritus as he went.
The plane was
dipping quickly out of sight, but there was still quite a bit of
flotsam and jetsam in the water, the windows and doors had burst
open, items sucked out and strewn over a long course. He avoided the
plane itself, stayed far away from the leaking slick of fuel on the
surface, and just made a makeshift float from the cushions. The life
jacket he had gotten to was intact, and with some negotiation he
slipped into it an began to inflate it, years of watching the in
flight safety briefing making the action he had never actually taken
before, seem like second nature to him.
Secured and bouyant
he rested his arms and legs, turning his face to the sun, and just
floating for a few seconds as the wreckage bubbled and swirled with
the water into the depths below. It was as the water settled and the
pockets of air stopped rising from the wreck, that he saw what had
been on the other side of the plane's main fuselage. The lifeboats
from the aircraft were filled, not completely bt it looked like
everyone from the flight including the crew were in them.
Everyone except
him.
Beyond them, where
they were aiming towards was land. No one was looking for him, they
had to assume that he had died when he was sucked out the side of the
plane in mid crash. The chances of him surviving that seemed
astronomical, but then again as Tony had been surmising in the flight
as it plummeted, what were the odds on his life up til this point
anyway, what’s one more miracle or disaster, who was counting?
He could see them,
but they did not see him, he was far enough away, at water level and
amongst the other discarded and non essential items from the crash.
He could see that a man in uniform, presumably the pilot, was
speaking into a phone, and this far out to be of any function it must
have been a satellite phone. Which meant that likely help was on the
way. Tony watched them get further and further away, while he and the
other flotsam were carried in the same direction with the tide and
currents heading towards the islands.
They looked pretty
sparse from his viewpoint and as the survivors in the life rafts grew
distant enough he moved a little quicker to secure more of the
floating rubbish to make a raft of sorts. The bottle of alcohol was
joined by small plastic minis, some of which he consumed on the way,
and he clambered onto it, less using it as a raft and more using it
to support his weight and allowing him to paddle faster towards the
land, at a speed a fraction of the oar strokes of the rafts ahead of
him.
The sun was sinking
in the sky as land loomed close enough to be attainable, and he could
not see where the crew had gone to, where they had landed or beached
their life rafts. The tide and currents had shifted more than enough
in the intervening hours it took him to paddle the few miles to the
beaches of whatever island was nearest.
It was dark when he
stood on dry land. Pulling what he brought with him up the beach and
towards the tree line nearest him. Hoping that his tracks would not
be seen in the day by exploring survivors, he had scrabbled back and
tried to wipe them out in the moonlight before heading to the cover
of the trees and sitting down, on hard and solid ground, just
enjoying the rocking motion he still felt from hours on the sea, but
knowing it was just his inner ear and that this was safety, at least
for a while.
He could not sleep
and felt rested enough a little close to midnight, from what his
watch was telling him the time was in Tonga, he had adjusted his
watch to the destination time during the flight to adjust his
thoughts to there. It was only a few hours different from Auckland
and here he was approximately half way between the two he had
guessed. The pilot had called the islands Kermadecs, but he knew
little to nothing of them. They could have been Timbuktu for all he
knew.
He walked the
length of the beach until he eventually came to headland he could not
wade around due to the rocky coast and the crashing waves, the wind
had picked up a little since he had come ashore and the coast looked
dangerous to traverse in only moonlight. He could see his way over
the hills to the crest above that headland and it was atop there that
he finally saw the other passengers and crew. They had paddled around
this jutting peninsula and made landfall on a secluded bay around
from it where there was a wharf like structure, simple and small for
landing nothing much bigger than the two life rafts or other small
craft. They had also lit a fire and he had seen the flickering embers
rising into the sky from the bay before he had seen them.
He took a seat on
the hilltop, near some rocks if he needed cover fast, though it was
unlikely to be a necessary precaution given the distance. The
survivors looked happy to be on land and did not seem to be too
distressed, and even laughed and carried themselves with some joy of
life. He watched them for a while, even when some of the passengers
rolled up some of the clothes, cushions and blankets that they
managed to fish from the cabin contents floating nearby them on the
way to land, and went to sleep. They looked comfortable but he felt
no envy, and no desire to go an join them at all.
A few more hours
passed and as the dawn rose he finally began to feel sleepy, and
wondered if he was dreaming, half asleep/half awake as he saw lights
bobbing on the water coming closer and closer. Then a splitting noise
in the paradise of silence woke him fully and he saw that it was not
a dream.
It was a boat,
searchlights on and heading straight for the wharf and the ecstatic
cries of the beached crash survivors.
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