Plane Crash On Cloud Nine
By Danny Monger
“I wonder how long this is going to take,” Jack thought as he approached the airport baggage check. To his surprise, only 15 minutes later, he was past security and on his way to meet his wife and daughter Sofia at their gate. Jack was not a happy man. He did the same things the same way everyday and was growing tired of it. He often reminisced about his teen years and early twenties when he was as free as a bird. Unlike then, he has a wife and kid to hold him back, or so he believed. He married his high school sweetheart at the early age of 22 and was now taking his wife and daughter to the Bahamas for their 20th anniversary. His daughter Sofia came as a surprise to both his wife and him on their 5th anniversary, which makes her fifteen now. As Jack was waiting for his wife and daughter he noticed something peculiar. Everyone was already boarding the plane! “Jack where are you?” his wife Rebecca said as she looked blindly for him. “I’m over here. The plane is leaving! Hurry up!” Jack replied. 10 minutes later Jack and his family were taking off and preparing for the long 8-hour flight from New York, to the Bahamas. An hour later Sofia looked to her father and said, “Hey Dad? Can I order something to eat?” “I’m already paying for this flight, our hotel, and the rest of our vacation, so I think that you can survive this flight without a bag of salted peanuts” Jack snapped back at her. “Alright, Alright” Sofia said over the sounds of her stomach growling. All of a sudden the seatbelt lights came on and a voice came over the loudspeaker saying, “Please fasten your seatbelts, as we are about to experience some brief turbulence.” Jack looked out the window expecting to see some clouds or rain, but as he peered out of the small airtight window he saw nothing but black. “Dad, is everything ok? I hope that we…” but Sofia’s voice was cut off by the sound of lightning hitting the wing of their plane. The entire plane shook and before black smoke blocked out his vision, Jack looked out his window to see fire covering the wing of their plane. He looked back at his daughter and wife trying to say something but the engine overpowered his voice. He saw his daughter crying and his wife screaming. It was the last time he would ever see them alive. As the plane hurdled towards the Gulf of Mexico a voice came over the loudspeaker saying, “Please remain calm,” but calm was the last thing on everyone’s mind. Jack grabbed his daughter and wife as their plane plunged deep into the Gulf of Mexico. He would never forget this moment, and as the smoke choked him unconscious, he lost all hope of survival and put himself at the mercy of the current…
Jack woke up in a coast guard helicopter on a stretcher. Every breath he took stung his lungs and the pain in his chest was almost unbearable. He quickly sat up in his stretcher and looked at the ocean below to see the plane he was a passenger on only a few hours ago, sinking deep into the black waters of the Gulf of Mexico. “Sofia! Rebecca!” He screamed at the ocean below, but he knew that nothing he ever did could bring them back.
1 year later Jack found himself in a downtown New York coffee shop watching the news and drinking his coffee, which was black of course, due to the fact that every sweet thing to him now tasted sour. Ever since the “accident”, as he referred to it, his life had changed for the worse. He constantly regretted his idiocy for hating his family and knew that he was not the father that he wanted to be, the one he should have been. Nothing could have brought back his daughter and the last thing that he said to her was “No”! And his dear wife Rebecca, who he took for granted all of these years, was no longer around to remind him to do the dishes or take his medication. What was he going to do with the rest of his life? Would his newfound depression lead him into a dead end on life? But in the middle of his train of thought, his waitress came by to refill his coffee and ended up spilling it everywhere. As Jack was preparing to yell at this young waitress, he took a second to think. “Was this really her fault? Is she okay? What can I do to help this poor women,” Jack thought to himself before helping her clean up the coffee and taking her to the bathroom to get cleaned up. “Thank you so much! I can’t tell you how many people would have just let me clean this up myself!” his waitress said. “I’m Megan what’s your name?” she asked sincerely. Jack stuttered his name as he was truly looking at her for the first time, and hadn’t noticed this women’s immense beauty. “Megan” Jack stumbled into saying, “Can I buy you a coffee or something?” Jack asked. “I actually don’t drink coffee, but I would be happy to meet you somewhere tonight!” Megan said ironically.
2 hours later, Jack was on his first date since the accident and was a nervous wreck. He was determined to not let it show, but he knew that eventually she would find out about the accident and not want to be involved in his life. To his surprise, when she did find out about the accident, she said, “I’m sorry for your loss and it is all over now. The past is the past and if you do not want to talk about it, well… that is your decision!” It was at this moment that he knew that he was in love.
2 years later, Jack was preparing for another date with Megan, and had decided that he was going to propose to her. He took her to the coffee shop where they first met and he said, “Megan. I know I have had a rocky past and I have lost people that I still love and miss very much. But you have taught me that you can’t spend your entire life mourning. Every second I am with you I can’t help but smile, something that took me almost a year to do after the plane crash. You gave me my life back, you saved me, and without you I am blind to this world. The connection that we share is impossible to describe in any other way than this. Megan, I need you in my life because you are my life. You are my everything, and I don’t want to ever lose you. Jack then got down on one knee, his good knee, and proposed to Megan. She ended up making him wait another month before she agreed, but that summer they ended up getting married.
Jack and Megan had children who then had children of their own. This story was passed down throughout the generations of their children and then was given a title that could only describe the horrible events that led to Jack meeting his current wife. That title was Plane Crash on Cloud Nine.