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Jennie and I assured him that we appreciated his offer.
I even said that I would gladly pay for the use of it, except I didn't know if the company I worked for was still in existence.
"No, no, there's nothing to pay," he insisted. "With what's happening these days, money isn't worth anything anyway." He shook our hands, saying good-bye, and left quickly.
We went to the sandwich counter for something to eat, and walked back to the plane. I didn't know how to tell Jennie that we shouldn't go back. I checked my watch. We were five minutes overdue already. They probably locked the doors already or had left. I hoped they would have, then I wouldn't have to explain. But the doors were still open. I heard the engines wind up. I knew Harry couldn't fly this mission by himself. I also knew that it had to be flown. How then is a person to react? I just couldn't turn my back at him. Staying behind in paradise was a dream that would never be, a wonderful dream, but nothing more than that. I put the key in my wallet.
"What the hack," I said to Jennie as I stepped aboard with her, our sandwiches still in hand. She stared at me questioningly, as I locked the cabin door behind us. She might have been wondering what this, 'what the hack,' was all about. I didn't let on. I reached for the phone and called Harry up on the flight deck. "Let's roll Harry!"
We both went upstairs. Jennie said nothing and started to smile again. I could hear the engines accelerate to get us rolling. I shared my sandwiches that I had collected. So did Jennie. The sharing was more a nice gesture than a necessity. "We've got boxes and boxes full of food," said Harry, grinning. "There is enough here to feet eight hundred."
"Noah Heavy, you've got the runway," the tower called back.
"All right, here we come," Harry exclaimed. Within seconds we thundered once more over the concrete and out over the sea.
"Good luck Noah!" the tower signed off.
The return flight was our sleeping and dining cruise. First we ate our sandwiches, then some of the buns and biscuits out of the food boxes. We hadn't reached cruising altitude when the flight deck became suddenly rather empty. We had agreed among us that Harry, Jennie and Ken should sleep first. I would have my turn at sleeping on the way back to Hawaii.
It soon became apparent that this was a bad decision. I should have asked for someone to stay with me. It was hard to stay awake in this lonely dark world of the cockpit with no one around. The soft whine of the engines, the hiss of the airflow over the hull, the occasional clank of a storage compartment door left open, were the only sounds to be heard.
At first I gave myself to star watching, for something to do. The aircraft flew more accurately by itself, under computer control. Still, I couldn't dare fall asleep. The pilot's job is to handle emergency situations. Harry had specifically warned me about the risks of falling asleep. It had happened to him once when his captain was off the deck for dinner and the altitude control system malfunctioned. He nearly executed four hundred people while sleeping.
As it was, far more fearful feelings came over me, than those about falling asleep. As I looked out into the dark star-filled sky, I became afraid for humanity. As if the clock had moved forward and the war had sequenced on, our plane suddenly appeared in my mind like it were the last outpost of a dying species seeking refuge at the edge of its poisoned world. The thought shocked me. Frightening images crept into the mind in the dark. For all I knew, these images could have already become reality. Our destination cities might lie in ashes when we arrived, with no place for us to land. Our 'ark' might be cradling the last remnant of the civilization that had once created it. And that too, I realized, might last only another six hours until the fuel ran out and this final flicker of a once proud civilization would end. I also realized that the autopilot would than need constant adjusting to bypass the dead cities. But adjust it to what? That's when I awoke.
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Stories about
Love
from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche
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