Jacqueline Druga: Under the Gray Skies

Lindsay said she’d be embarrassed if I pulled out the backpack and rummaged through it for food. I told her jokingly, “Wait until I make myself peanut butter crackers and wash them down with vodka.”

I said that jokingly, but I was never so grateful for my ridiculous snack pack, as I was in that hole.

While I didn’t have the quintessential survival bag, I had stuff to help with my survival.

With no idea how long I’d be there, I rationed immediately.

I had a couple bags of chips, a sleeve of crackers, some fruit snacks, and those individual peanut butter to go packs, some candy, four bottles of water and a quart freezer bag stuffed with airline size bottles of booze.

I didn’t gulp the water, I sipped it.

The first three days, I wanted to drink with urgency, especially when the dust tickled my throat. I’d bring a drink to my mouth, swish it around and slowly swallow it.

It rained on the fifth day, a torrential downpour. I didn’t even realize it rained in California.

I extended my two empty bottles outside that fist size hole and filled them.

I didn’t drink them. Instead I set the bottles aside, still unsure if the air and water were contaminated. I figured I’d use them as a last resort.

It was after that storm that some of the rubble blocking me in grew muddy and soft. At first I used my fingers picking at the mud, then after the first full rock dropped out, I knew I could escape.

Even without a rescue crew, if I could make that fist size hole big enough, I could leave. Granted, digging my way out had crossed my mind, but I quickly dismissed that due to my fears of being exposed to radiation.

Radiation be damned, after what I figured was seven days in that tight space, I needed out. I was down to my last bottles of rain water, and a few bites of food.

I turned my body away from the hole and pressed my back against a wall of debris, then started using my feet to kick blocks of rubble outward.

It was my own personal game of Jenga. All it would take was one wrong move to have everything tumble down. The only difference was, it wasn’t a game, and the loss would be my life.

Each hour, each minute, I made some progress. With every inch that the hole grew bigger more air flowed into my prison. It carried an odor I couldn’t place. I had to get that opening as wide as my shoulders at the very least. Despite how much wider I made the opening, I still couldn’t see what was beyond the hole. It opened up to what looked like an overcast sky. A dark overcast sky moments before a storm hit, however I saw no clouds.

Only grayness.

It instilled in me a fear that somehow I was high above everything. I vowed not to look out. Simply because I wanted nothing to hinder my determination.

It was days, it had to have been, before finally I believed my escape route was wide enough. I was literally going to crawl out blindly. Unable to see what was before, below or above me I only hoped that all my efforts wouldn’t be in vain and I didn’t fall and break every bone in my body.

My view of the outside was like looking through a window. For the first time in days I extended my upper body out of the hole, trying to gauge and understand what I had to face.

The mound of debris formed a slope, but not a steep one. I couldn’t see where it ended though. It seemed my visibility was limited to only a mere ten feet.

It was enough for me to know I could push out my backpack and then crawl out myself.

Before doing so, I said goodbye to my sister. I had ripped a t-shirt to cover my nose and mouth comfortably and used the other half to cover Lindsay’s hand.

After my brief farewell, I shoved out the backpack and rested it next to the hole, then I began my escape.

It wasn’t as easy as I hoped. My head and shoulders fit through just fine, but the opening grew snug around my hips and without any way to get a real footing, it was a ‘wiggle and inch out’ maneuver. It wasn’t working. It suddenly hit me that while my mind used the analogy that my air pocket of rubble was like a womb, the mound of debris wasn’t giving birth to me and going out head first probably wasn’t the best idea.

It was wiser and safer to emerge breach. It was awkward lifting my legs to that hole, even though it was only about two feet from the floor of my cave. Once my knees had reached the edge of the hole, I rolled over to crawl out belly down.

It was the first time in a while that my legs were completely extended, and they didn’t want to straighten out. Nor did my back, it felt as if I had frozen in a half bent position. My arms were still strong and I used them to push and crawl backward, I found it easier to get my hips through.

My legs, partially bent, dangled and rested against the slope.

Thankfully, the mound wasn’t a straight shot down or my pack would have rolled. It rested not far from where I pushed it out.

Once fully out, I turned to be on my back once again. I slipped some, but was able to stop from falling. My breaths were rapid, I found myself panicking.

I looked down. I couldn’t see anything further than a few feet in front of my shoes. It was like the thickest, darkest fog I had ever seen. I knew it wasn’t fog, it couldn’t be. It inhibited me from seeing what was before me and below me. Grabbing my pack, I placed it over my shoulder and slowly and cautiously crawled down on my back. Standing wasn’t an option, not on that mound and not with my legs and back being so stiff.

There was a red crushed soda can that protruded slightly from the rubble right by my left foot. So inching down until it was next to my eyes, I made a mental note that I had made it about five, five and a half feet. Still no sign of the ground below.

I found my next visual point by my foot, a blue piece of debris, I used it as a reference point. Once I got to it, I knew I had made it another five and a half feet. It became my small goal in getting down. Finding something to focus on, arriving at it and moving on.

I’d look up and couldn’t see where I had come from, nor could I see what was below. I kept count, it was after I hit my eighth goal that visibility opened up enough for me to see the ground. It was still a good twenty feet down. Whatever mist, or fog that blocked me from seeing below me, literally hovered over the area. It was dense and dark.

How did I get so far up there? How did I survive that?

The nearer I got to the bottom, I could see there was water on the ground, like a thin stream. It was easier to see the closer I got to the end of my journey.

Once I hit the bottom, my left foot splashed in the water. It was only about two inches deep. I realized I didn’t have the agility to stand up from my position and I had to turn to my side so I could.

Crammed in a hole for ten days locked my body into some sort of crocked mode. Even with both feet planted firmly on the ground, my knees were slightly bent and my back was at a forty five degree angle as I stared down to the ground. It hurt to move, and I was extremely stiff.

Using my backpack, I placed it on the mound, faced it, and with both hands on the pack, I slowly pushed myself to a better upright position. I was still hunched, but not as bad. I shouldered the pack and turned around to see what was before me.

Somewhere in my mind, in my fantasy, I expected to see rescue workers. My emergence would be victorious and perhaps I’d shout out, “Hey! Over here!”

Their shocked faces would reflect their surprise that I had survived. People would rush to my aid, give me water to quench my thirst, a blanket for warmth and help me with walking.

It was a fantasy, an unrealized dream. Instead I emerged into a nightmare world, my deepest fears come true.