“I need a two way ticket to Hawaii,” I told the lady standing in front of me and behind the ticket desk at American Airways.
“Ahhh, I see. Going to see family are we?”
“Yes ma’am. How’d you know that?,” I replied in a raspy voice by accident.
“It’s pretty common this time of year, actually.”
I didn’t expect anything other than huge dinners and playing video games with my cousins when I arrived in Hawaii. I wasn’t big on outdoors, but my family always pushed me towards outdoor activities like camping and hunting. Them pushing only made me hate it that much more. The visit to my family was supposed to last about a week, but I had planned to come home early, just so I didn’t fall behind on my Xbox skills.
Window seat? Thank god. The window seat was my favorite because I could witness the white clouds above us come down, eventually leaving the plane above them due to the plane ascending. I loved that view. The view that made it seem as if the clouds were a blanket of cotton below us.
Soon enough, I was dozing off like the rest of the passengers on my flight. I had one earbud in with the other dangling like a hung silhouette.
“Uhhhh, Flight 5-8 to ground control…”
“Yes 5-8, this is ground control, over.”
I was half asleep, half awake so I could only hear bits and pieces of the radio communication between our pilots and what I had guessed to be the radio control tower.
“5-8?”
“Yeahhhh ground control, we have reason to believe our altimeter is uhhhh, off by a bit. Over.”
“How so, 5-8?”
“It’s showing a descending 5,000 feet but we have reason to believe we’re at a steady 40,000. Over.”
I sat up. Obviously the altimeter is off, I thought. For some reason, telling myself that was not very reassuring. I began to feel sick and looked around the cabin. A few people were doing the same, but the majority were still mid-dream. You know that feeling when you know something is wrong and you pray to God that you are wrong, only to find out you were right all along? Yeah.
I glanced toward the front where the flight attendant stood frantically pulling up the microphone to announce what probably would have been: “We’re all going to die.” Before she could even breathe into the microphone, I felt a sudden jolt against my waist, my seatbelt yanking hard into my abdomen, my head flying forward slamming into the upright table that I was eating off of only minutes before.
As I woke, my vision began to refocus. I turned my head to my right to witness mangled bodies and torn clothing. The horrid smell forced me to vomit. I felt that my seatbelt was tighter than ever around my waist, later revealing a dark red mark across my skin. My seat was completely in tact, while the others weren’t so lucky. I unbuckled my seatbelt and fell to the ground. I was weak. How long was I out? Hours? Days? It had to of been days at least.
I regained my balance and tried to comprehend the mess I was in. I peeked around chunks of aircraft debris only to see more bodies scattered throughout the foliage and surrounding area. These were the bodies that were just recently alive and snoring in the uncomfortable seats of Flight 5-8, the bodies that I had to loot the clothes and possessions of, the bodies that gave me nightmares that did nothing but remind me that I was the only breathing thing that made it through that wreck.
I made use of the luggage to make fires. I ate food that was packed in peoples bags. This was a lot worse than going camping with the family. At least when we went camping I had someone to complain to. Now I was speaking to myself. I had to think of ways to escape the island that was (hopefully) nothing like Hawaii.
Every night I’d sit and listen to the wilderness. The wilderness that I’d grown up hating. The wilderness that was now my home for what seemed like years, decades even. As time progressed, I grew to respect the wild and the benefits it gave over living in a city playing video games all day.
One night when the moon showed full, I looked out into the sea, the waves pounding against the sandy shore. I began to close my eyes when I saw a red light going off, and then on. Off. On. Off. On. I began to sit up, for I knew exactly what it was. But after all the things I had lived through on this island, I sat back down and rested, for I wasn't stranded on an island, but was stranded at home.