Together forever

Together Forever

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                                            By Sammy Pastrana

The San Juan Bay Air Show is an exciting spectacle that takes place in the picturesque surroundings of the entrance to the bay of San Juan, capital of the Caribbean Island of Puerto Rico. Located in the northeastern portion of this charming island, this historic city is protected by ancient walls built by the Spanish during the colonization period. The expansive port of San Juan, surrounded by well-preserved ancient structures, provides a stunning backdrop for the air show. The bay’s deep blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the surrounding green hills formed a natural amphitheater of beautiful contrasts for spectators. Thousands of aviation enthusiasts, both tourists and locals, lovers of strong emotions, gather annually to witness and feel the adrenaline rush through their bodies while watching the impressive and daring aerial performances.

Alex and Julie, two old friends and skilled aviators, were notorious for their audacious aerial acrobatics. They had participated in the last three editions of this famous Caribbean spectacle in their vintage biplanes, the Silver Bullet and the Blue Comet, in which they performed synchronized loops, barrel rolls and fearless dives that almost caressed the ground, leaving spectators with their mouths agape. But as the next annual San Juan Bay Air Show approached, Julie craved more than just applause.

The night before the show, the two friends were standing in silence on the edge of one of the walls of Fortin del Morro, a military structure built by the Spanish centuries ago overlooking the entrance to the San Juan Bay and the small Goat Island, located on the other side of the port. From above, a beautiful scene was on display. It seemed as if the moon painted silver streaks on the waters that constantly changed shape with the capricious sway of the waves. Suddenly, Julie's eyes shone with mischief and her cheerful smile echoed breaking the silence.

“What if we defy all the viewers' expectations tomorrow in the show?” She whispered.

“What are you talking about?” Alex asked.

"Let's play an air game that leaves the audience speechless."

Julie approached her friend. He felt the young woman's warm breath against his ear. As if it were a great secret, she murmured to him:  

“We will play the Spiral Chase Game, a maneuver so dangerous that no one has tried it before at this air show. I will be the first to launch the Blue Comet from a great altitude in a vertical spiral dive. You will immediately follow me in the same way, until our wings are about to touch the water. At the last moment, we got out of the dive by recovering our planes to lift vertically. If we achieve it, the crowd will remember us forever.”

Alex hesitated because he was averse to taking unnecessary risks.

“What happens if we fail?”

Julie smiled.  "We’ll be legends if we die. But don’t worry, our friendship is eternal and we’ll be together forever, even in death."

Alex and Julie shared a friendship born from their passion for aviation. They met when they enrolled in the aviation course at the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico, as part of their master's degree in aeronautics. Although they quickly became friends, Alex hid a secret that he didn’t dare reveal. He loved Julie from the first day they met. To him, her blue gaze was sunlight, and her wit and frankness were a constellation. But he did not want to ruin their friendship. Afraid of being rejected, he buried his feelings and watched as Julie dated other people, like Jeremy, Daniel and Dimitri. Every relationship destroyed his heart. Due to their great piloting skills and extensive knowledge in the field, they were hired as instructors by the University after graduation.  

Alex's connection with Julie deepened due to their many shared interests, particularly their love of aviation. When they flew, they felt free in the vast blue space, where they both forgot their worries and Alex lost his fear of taking risks. Year after year, they participated as a team in most of the air shows held in the Caribbean and the United States. Their minds came to intertwine like the threads of a complex riddle, even though Alex continued to maintain in silence a deep love for Julie, a love he would forever keep secret. Alex's great patience and Julie's sharp wit and candor made them a formidable duo in the air.

When Alex went to bed that night after hearing Julie's proposal to play the Spiral Chase Game at the air show, a deep sense of foreboding and guilt invaded him for acquiescing to her reckless proposal. Very focused on how to get Julie the next morning to give up on that crazy idea, he fell deeply asleep.

The next day, the San Juan Bay area was filled with expectation. Thousands of people gathered along the ancient walls and structures, cameras and binoculars at the ready. Alex and Julie boarded their vintage biplanes at the Isla Grande Airport, a nearby airfield located in the heart of the Miramar area of San Juan, from where all participants would take off. Their engines roared and after taxiing for a while along the taxiway parallel to the Island's busy cruise port, they took the takeoff position at the beginning of the main runway. Shortly after, their aircraft began to roll rapidly until reached takeoff speed to then rose into the sky.

The crowd gasped and screamed as the planes maneuvered as if dancing –a perfect duo of pilots and machines– sometimes above it. At first, Alex was ahead and Julie followed, their planes inches away. At great speed, they spiraled upward, twisting and turning, leaving trails of smoke behind them that formed complicated but well-defined paths. Then, as she flew facing the sun, Julie passed Alex and gave him a signal: the Spiral Chase Game had begun.

After gaining altitude above the bay's outlet to the Atlantic Ocean, Julie began a crazy, dizzying dive as she forced the Blue Comet to spin rapidly with her only engine screeching. Alex felt compelled to follow her by doing the same maneuver. It was as if the ocean was rushing toward them, churning foam-tipped waves hungry for their wings. Julie's heart was pounding and adrenaline coursed through her entire body. As he followed Julie, Alex trusted the abilities of his dear friend, although he knew that this maneuver, which she called a game, was tantamount to suicide.

To save their lives, the pilots had to sharply raise the nose of their planes at the last moment, when they lightly touched the water surface with the tips of their wings as they banked. As the Blue Comet was quickly approaching the water, Julie tried it. Her plane groaned and flexed its wings. The crowd held its breath. But something went wrong. The Blue Comet wavered. Julie struggled with the controls, but the plane succumbed to the force of gravity and inertia, sinking immediately after its nose touched the water, although without breaking up. The crowd screamed in despair as the Blue Comet disappeared into the abyss. The ocean swallowed Julie and her screams, if any, were not heard.

Meanwhile, behind her, Alex successfully recovered the Silver Bullet from the dangerous dive and immediately turned around to return to the crash site. Desperate, he circled several times at a very low altitude, almost touching the water, looking for any sign of his dear friend in the hope that she was alive, but he found nothing. Very sad, he decided to land.

As he prepared for his final approach to the main runway at Isla Grande Airfield, Alex looked at the horizon and whispered the promise he and Julie had made to each other the night before:

“Together forever even in death.”

  With eyes bathed in tears, he cried out to God:

"Oh, my Lord, have mercy on me. I cannot and do not want to live without Julie. Please, give me the opportunity to confess my love and tell her that I need to be with her forever, even in death."

The rays of the morning sun began to pass through the window curtain next to Alex's bed, illuminating his face until he woke up in a state of complete disorientation. The dream had seemed too real, so real that his face was still covered in tears. He ran to the window, hoping to see the ocean below, but all he saw was the flickering of the streetlight struggling to stay on. He rubbed his eyes. An enormous sadness invaded him, the emotions —the fear, the loss— still clung to him like cobwebs. But then, he realized that Julie was still alive, safe, blissfully unaware of his terrible nightmare, and that today was the San Juan Bay Air Show. She must already be waiting for him to play the Spiral Chasing Game together. It had all been just a nightmare, something that never happened.

The ringing of the phone interrupted his thoughts. He was silent for a moment as he listened to the beautiful voice scolding him for getting up late. With boundless joy he responded: "Hello dear! You don’t know how happy it makes me to hear your voice... (silence) ...Yes, yes, give me 15 minutes and I will see you downstairs in the hotel cafeteria. I have to tell you something incredible, something that has made me rethink many things."

When Alex met Julie in the cafeteria, she had already ordered breakfast for both of them and was ready to eat. Without letting the young lady speak, he hugged her effusively. Surprised, Julie received the hug. Then, putting some distance between them by pushing him slightly with both hands on his chest, she asked:

"Why so much effusiveness? Sit down, we have little time to get ready for the competition. We’ll leave the spectators speechless today with our performance of the Spiral Chase Game." You will see... they will remember us forever. It will be a…"

Alex interrupted her:

"Julie, I have something very important to tell you. We won’t execute that maneuver today. The Spiral Chase Game will be out of our repertoire forever."

Very surprised, she looked at him without finishing taking the spoonful of cereal she was about to eat.

“What are you saying… and what’s the reason for your unilateral decision?

Alex took a deep breath and, in great detail, narrated the terrible nightmare he experienced the night before when, in his dream, they both tried to play the game and how she disappeared under the waters inside the cabin of the Blue Comet.

Julie reacted:

“Sorry for that dream, Alex, but it was just that, a dream. You’ll see that nothing is going to happen. Trust me."

"No Julie, please, give up that idea. I suffered a lot because of that nightmare and I do not want it to come true. The only good thing is that it wasn't real and that I lost the fear of confessing that I don't want to be with you in death, but to be together forever, but alive."

 Alex took the young woman's hands and, for the first time in all the years they had been friends, he dared to confess his love for her.

She looked at him for a while and smiled. Then she brought her face close to his ear and, in a whisper, confessed:

"You know, I have longed to hear those words from your lips for a long time. I have loved you too since the first time we met.”

Then they looked at each other for a moment and sealed their love with a long and passionate kiss.

The Silver Bullet and the Blue Comet participated that morning in the San Juan Bay Air Show, but the Spiral Chase Game did not take place. The young pilots did not win the competition this time, however, they did win the certainty that they would be together forever.

Story by Sammy Pastrana

April 16, 2024