1.

I am on a 747 to Cleveland. I know this without looking at my ticket. I wear my grandfather’s Michigan football jersey from 1942. Number 38. My grandfather died in a commuter plane crash in 1970 heading to Cleveland. An Ohio State fan fills the aisle beside me with scarlet and grey. Her face painted with ash. Her sweatshirt like a swollen tomato. We condemn each other as though we were the saved and the other a loose heretic.

Then the engines go out and the masks drop. The aisle lights flare and bags tumble from the overhead compartments. “This is not a drill. Stay calm,” calls out
the flight attendant. Her hair loose in her face.

The plane lurches. I spill from my seat. The Ohio State fan sees me but offers no help. Through my window, the city is erased, replaced by the smiling moon and a darkness black as the inside of a closed mouth at night.

The flight attendant announces we are to deplane, mid-air. “Calmly, line up, single file, by the door.” I stride through the aisle like a fullback for the end zone, knocking over children, an elderly man. The Ohio State fan gets my knee under her chin.

The door is open in space. The wind is like a current. Beside our plane is another with its oval door open. A man motions for me to jump when there’s another lurch and the other plane falls behind. It catches up and I am motioned to jump again. I expect to fall, to be vacuumed into the atmosphere.

2.

We run down the mountainside like those crowds in Godzilla movies: arms extended over our heads as though we waded into too-cold ocean water. The fallen leaves applaud beneath our feet. The branches snap across our faces. The moon grins in the corner of night. The plane explodes behind us. The heat of the fire closes in like an avalanche. This is why we survived. To die like this.

Near the bottom of the mountain, we turn as the tops of the shadowed trees convulse and seize. Piles of leaves erupt in screams. A man rises from under a pile like a zombie from a tomb, blood down his lips like paint. He screams like a wild hog, high pitched, in pain. His arms loose in their sockets. A woman is resurrected too. The screaming man helps her uncover. He shovels the dead leaves over his shoulder. They’re lovers. They embrace but he can only squeal. He cannot tell her loves her. Cannot say he is happy she survived. He screeches at her like a raccoon clipped by a car. She ducks away quickly, squeezing her ears with cupped hands.

My friend is there as we are led to the ambulances. Their red lights filling our faces. He tries to calm me. “This happens everyday,” he says. “Planes go down. People die. There is pain. But why do I not remember crashing? I ask him. Why don’t I remember the event itself, just the before and after? “You’ll remember,” he says, “when your body will allow you to. This is why we survived. To live like this.”

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