vertical drafts wrench wings making them flap like falling geese, and rivets flex and winds cut this way and that and pound like air hammers . . . well, the human mind can only do so much, can only take so much – only process so many bits of information before overload.
Circumstances had conspired and framed Griff, left him vulnerable, made him a casualty of his own mind, his own mistaken reflexes – that cluster of a thousand neurons somewhere inside the prefrontal cortex (executive thinker, commander-in-chief of cortex and cerebellum alike), that one insignificant circuit . . . it misfired? Caused an error in judgment? Yes, it’s true, the pathway shorted out, sent signals down the wrong street, around the wrong corner, through a stop sign and up the off-ramp against the red and white sign that said:
WRONG WAY
DO NOT ENTER
But too late. The wind-battered sky plane clips the tallest pine rising from the high bluff, a tear, a gash, a nasty lesion bleeding hydraulic oil and trailing sparks and flecks of shiny metal, torn wires like veins and capillaries – a fatal wound, a wound that cannot heal. And now the surging adrenalin and faintheartedness as everything becomes much too real.
A good time for reconcilements with gods and men alike, appeasements, confessions, silent pleas for interventions and miracles, anything – and then the radio call, an airborne mayday, followed by an apology to the copilot, brace yourself, Jimbo, we’re going down . . . I’m sorry.