Flaming debris fell about me, jagged wreckage thrown from the sky with more force than gravity could muster, long trails of smoke and flame flickered in the wake of each turbulent passing. I tumbled, still strapped to the chair, my seatbelt jammed tight by my own spiralling weight as I tumbled head over foot through the air. Earth and sky interchanged positions repeatedly and I lost all sense of direction. Bodies flew past me, mouthing silent screams that echoed my own, limbs flailing, hair streaming, clothes blasted by the wind. Some fell limp and motionless, tumbling gently until they reached an aerodynamic equilibrium, generally on their backs, limbs cast upwards as if imploring the heavens for rescue, fluttering in the slipstream of their own plummeting passage earthwards. Others fell in a flurry of grasping and flailing, some even tried to maintain some of equilibrium and as I watched, one fellow passenger even managed to flatten himself into a classic free-fall position, limbs spread at the corners of a square, steering himself past flapping detritus and other passengers. He looked so competent, even though he had no parachute. Despite his skill, he was probably doomed, as was I if I didn't get myself out of this seat!
Ignoring the glittering blue sky and the sparkling of the sea far below crashing against a half-seen coast, I concentrated on the belt about my hips. It was a standard issue airline seatbelt, meant to hold me in my seat in the event of turbulence but not really designed to restrain me in free-fall. It should spring open cleanly and easily, what was stopping it? My clothing flapped about me, obscuring my vision almost completely, shirt tails pulled free and fluttered irritatingly in my face, slapping me a few good hits fair in the eye. I clenched both eyes closed tightly and felt with both hands, my inner balance shot as I tumbled. The sense of urgency was almost overwhelming and I had to swallow against the panic rising inside me. There! I could feel my own belt caught in the mechanism of the seatbelt, fouling it's release. I sucked my stomach in slightly and managed to slide my hand between the seatbelt and my own frail flesh, freeing the mechanism just enough, now a quick effort to ... snap ... it ... free!
The chair tumbled away from me, and as I flipped onto my back I watched it waffle upwards, striking the parachute-less skydiver a glancing blow before he could dodge it. A soundless scream burst from his mouth and one of his arms bent back at an unnatural angle, flapping uselessly in the slipstream. Inevitably, he began to tumble, all control lost. My brief freedom at the cost of any chance he may have had? Life was cruel. I turned and dove, head down, regaining control and sliding smoothly onto my stomach so I could fleetingly see where I was falling, an instinctive need look in the direction I was traveling, no matter how futile that might be given my inability to control my descent. I spread my arms and legs wide, straining against the tearing wind in an attempt to slow myself. The distant shoreline beneath me was much closer now, rushing with visible speed towards me. Already I could see other bodies striking the shallow water and the sand, leaving bloody scars in what would otherwise be a pristine and paradisiacal beachside vista, water and land equally hard at this speed. The panic unmanned me and all consciousness fled as the final few hundred metres fled, the dark enveloping me before I felt the earth's rugged kiss.
I had no right to be alive, about me was only destruction and death, great sooty, bloody wounds in the ground the only evidence my fellow passengers had existed, the fuselage of the plane recognisable only by small uncrushed sections of paneling strewn about me. The world wheeled about me as the shock hit me and I toppled back into the crater from which I had crawled, legs still shaky and jelly-like beneath me. I slowly climbed unsteadily back to my feet and looked about. The beach stretched endless before me, crystal blue sea crashing in sparkling spray against the soft yellow sand, no palm trees, no coconuts, just a low berm of some kind of tufty grass that let onto the sand in ragged fingers of green. In the distance, a sound came to me, screaming, wailing, grinding. Sirens!
"Jesu! Dios! Es usted un Angel?”
A small, grubby boy stood behind me, olive skin sparkling beneath a layer of grime, eyes dark but bright in the falling sun, filthy hair falling in ragged bangs past his face. Behind him, some way in the distance, loomed a dark metropolis, dirty concrete buildings rising into the sky like stained teeth. The smell hit me, dust, rot and garbage all mixed with the sooty smell of burned plastic combined with jet fuel. Above me rose a multitude of thin trailers of smoke, rising straight in the still air before feathering out to dissipate into the hurtful and jealous blue sky.
"No, I'm not an Angel, kid," I replied, "you shouldn't be here, it could be dangerous."
He looked up at me, his mouth still open in awe. He shrugged and pointed back up into the heavens.
"Te vi caer del cielo, usted debe ser un Angel," he said. What I heard, however, was "I saw you fall from the sky, you must be an Angel!"
It was only after I shrugged in response that I realised he had not spoken English. I had been spared, and I knew not why, nor how. The fact that I was still alive colored the whole world with a feeling of unreality, like I was taking part in some unseen game. I didn't feel sore, nor broken, and a brief glimpse down at myself showed no injuries, nor did I feel any. My clothes were a mess, great rents and tears exposing strangely untouched flesh beneath, soot stained but whole. The beach was unreal, the boy was unreal, the crystal perfect sky was unreal. The distant city seemed to be the only thing that showed any normality, although I was certain that something about it's distant skyline was out-of-order, some low instinct made me wary of it. Still, this scene of death and destruction, man-made technology hurled from the jealous sky and reduced to so much flaming kindling, held no answers for me. On uncertain legs I turned mute from the boy's questions and started the long slow trek towards the distant city, the swift soft patter of his footsteps on grass and sand behind me tickling in my ears as he scampered in my trail.