Jacqueline Druga - Under the Gray Skies

The flesh on her right hand and wrist was discolored, hard and cold as it extended out from the wall of wreckage. It was all that remained of my sister. All that I could see. I held on to that hand for days, just holding it, crying, until I could no longer hold her hand because the flesh would rot off against my own fingers.

How I survived was a mystery. There had been no moment of regret, no sudden fear, no final thoughts screaming in my mind, “This is it. I’m going to die.”

There was however, complete astonishment when I opened my eyes and was still alive.

I woke to find my average size female body curled in a fetal position in a space no bigger than four by four feet. My own tiny box. It was pure luck the way things crumbled around me. I was the fortunate one, trapped in some sort of air pocket haven that had formed from the end section of the airport tram car.

My sister and the dozens that were around me weren’t so lucky.

Upon regaining consciousness, I was disoriented. I could feel metal and concrete surrounding me. Of course, I was pretty sure I was upside down. The blood rushed to my head but I was able to turn myself around and move my legs a bit. They ached some and I wasn’t sure if it was due to my prior position, or an injury.

The straps to my heavy backpack were still hooked over my shoulders, and that was when I realized, that pack probably saved my life. At the very least it protected me from something smashing against my spine. I was grateful at that moment that I hadn’t set it down, or checked it like my sister insisted I do.

“Just check it, Lace,” she said. “They’re asking for volunteers to give up their carry on. It’s free.”

She gave up her carry on and flashed the claim sticker. Lindsay almost had me convinced… then it all began.

Now that carry on was my life saver.

At first it didn’t matter what was in that bag… at first. I was stuck in this black spot. I couldn’t see anything. I could smell a hint of smoke and there was a dust of some sort that kept making me cough every time I cried out, “Help! Someone! Help!”

It seemed like I called out for hours. Over and over.

No one answered. In fact, there wasn’t any sound. Not a moan, or cry in the distance. There wasn’t a sound of anything falling, or water dripping.

Only silence.

After what I believed was a couple hours later, my small safety pocket brightened some. Not much. A glow of gray light seeped thought a fist size hole four feet from my face and I was able to make out my small surroundings. Three quarters of my little area were the remains of that airport tram. The metal was twisted around me and crushed beneath concrete. I wondered if the tram broke. The hole of light seemed to come from a wall of rubble around the severed edge of the tram car. The light also brightened that pocket enough for me to see my sister’s hand, it protruded from the debris and steel. It wasn’t far from me the entire time.

I screamed when I saw it, recognizing the ring on her middle finger. The same hand I was holding when things shook and fell down around us.

How did I survive, and not her? We were right there, together with the dozens of people that made it out of that airport terminal. Yet, I was alone, alive?

The small circle of light was also enough for me to see my watch. My mother’s watch. It was old and it had to be wound up daily. The face of the watch had cracked, but I could still see enough to tell the date had moved once and it was sixteen hours since I stood at that airport gate with my sister.

Sixteen hours.

How long had I been unconscious, rolled in a ball?

Inching about that pocket of space, I peered out the hole.

There was nothing to see. It was as if I were in some sort of gray cloud. I didn’t know if I were high above the debris, or close to the ground.

I just knew my position in that mound of crumbled airport didn’t matter. I was certain no one was near enough to hear me cry out. I was left to my own resources.

We called it the three legged race. Not that it was a race, it wasn’t anything like it. I suppose Lindsay and I could have given it a better name, like the tripod vacation. It was something we planned for years. Waiting for not only the available time, but also the finances to do so. Neither of us had disposable cash. Our dream vacation was the product of our hard work.

We started planning it when Lindsay moved to California with her husband, knowing full well it would take years to achieve. It broke my heart when she moved away. Her husband Kyle was in the Navy and was transferred out west. Her daughter Crystal was only three.

We talked daily, sometimes three or four times a day. Not only that, we texted and spoke through social media. The separation was tough. We were close. Lindsay was a year older, but everyone treated us like twins.

She worked as a nurse’s aide, I was one of three leasing agents at a public housing apartment complex. When the opportunity arose we stepped up on planning our trip. It really was a fluke. Every other week I drove a hundred miles to visit my mother for the weekend. Once a month, she and I visited the casino. Sixty dollars into my monthly gambling excursion, I hit a jackpot on a fifty cent bet. It wasn’t a huge jackpot, eighteen hundred dollars, but enough for my husband to take that money, tuck it away and say, “Plan.”

We did.

The money was enough to cover the airfare for the both of us on our dream trip. The plan was for me to fly out to California, visit her, Dave and Crystal, then after three days she and I would go to Vegas. Finally, both of us would fly to see my mother where we’d all spend time together.

It had been years since I saw her.

I loved the time I spent with her and her family. It went by so fast.

Lindsay was a good hearted soul who worked too hard. Then again, she had a hard job. She never complained about it. In fact, she talked highly about those she cared for and worked with. She walked with a limp and moved like someone far older than her forty-one years. Years of lifting patients gave her a bad back. I joked about that as much as she joked about my desk job rear end.

She had children late in life, I was done early.

Lindsay was without a doubt the closest friend I ever had.

We never fought. Not even as teenagers.

Spats, yes, fights, never.

In fact, we got into a fun spat about my carry-on backpack. I told her she would thank me at thirty thousand feet when I whipped out my one quart freezer bag full of tiny booze bottles for us to sneak on the flight.

It was a perfect trip, and a perfect day.

They had just made an announcement requesting passengers to check their carry ons free of charge because the flight was full. Of course it was full, it was one of those bargain airlines. The kind where you don’t get seat assignments just a boarding order line. We were line A and had just gotten into place when the tremor hit.

Being from the East, it was all new to me. The vibration along with the strange hum in my ears, made me panic slightly. While Lindsay wasn’t an earthquake connoisseur, she was barely fazed by the small rattle.

In fact, she waved it off as nothing and we stayed in our place in Line A.

We were settled in our spot when the second shake hit.

It was stronger and harder. It lasted about fifteen seconds. I grabbed onto Lindsay to keep my balance. The lights blinked, people screamed and the power went down.

I saw it on Lindsay’s face, she didn’t dismiss that one.

We were still in line and the power came back on rather quickly. Only a few minutes later, every single flight switched to ‘delayed’.