Thirty Summers

A fateful day – that third Thursday in July. Even the thought of it now brings beads of sweat to my forehead; though whether this comes from the oven-like heat or the consequences of its contents, I am not sure. My scarred fingers are hesitant and working against the stream of words that come from my brain. I must write this down, or I fear that my story will go unheard.

It has been three decades since the crash. Sometimes, upon reading others’ stories of survival since my own, they speak of forgetting. Their worlds turn black, and they are awoken by beeping in the ambulance or hospital with pain-relief; such that the universe gave them mercy by alleviating the traumatic psychological consequences of life-changing injuries. I don’t believe in karma and this is nothing spiritual, but rather I can recall every second of the crash, before, during and after. Why would I believe in karma when this is a fate as bad as death, and I lived a kind life to this point? Now, every summer I relive those seconds. I have found myself considering perhaps this is what I deserve and that this is the price I pay for being the sole survivor. No amount of therapy has removed this guilt.

Part 1

‘Where do I start?’ is a question I asked my therapist when they told me to write it all down. They told me to start where it is most intense – or where my brain first goes to when I have flashbacks.

The heat. My hands were black and misshapen. Imagine the most intense pins and needles you have ever experienced to the point of numbness. They felt three times the size, despite being burnt to the bone. I faced the wreck. There were flames dancing from its interior with thick, black smoke billowing into the bluest skies I had ever seen. I was stood far enough away now that when I realised the heat I was feeling wasn’t the fire, but instead from the sun, I thought for the second time that day that I was soon to die. I remember glancing upwards and staring directly into the blinding sun. I cursed it from deep within my soul. I begged, in that moment, for the sun to kill me. To burn my eyes like the fire had burned my hands. I was so, deeply disoriented that at one point it felt like the sun was below me rather than in the sky when I looked directly at it. That I might be able to jump, and I’d fall from the Earth’s ceiling and land into the sun. Around me the air started to wave, and my vision blurred to a golden haze. Finally, I collapsed to the scorched ground where the grass was sharp and brittle and grazed my skin.

As I slowly came to, I let out a deep groan. There was sweat streaming down my face and into various cuts that I had sustained – quite literally rubbing salt into the wound. This was the first time I felt real pain, though it wasn’t from my decimated hands, but rather from deep cuts to my calves. I realised that my blood had streamed out on to the grass.

Then came the thirst. My throat suddenly closed and I was spluttering blood in front of me. It felt as though a drop of water would have sent me to heaven in that moment. Living suddenly became worth it because water existed, and I must somehow get some.

Newly inspired by retrieving water, I stood up and I started walking. The sun beat down like it was angry at me. My skin had crisped from the fire from the crash, but the sun was baking me from the inside. I was sure there would be nothing left, but all I could see, want and taste was water. Beautiful, crisp, cold water. It was seductive. I thought of water running from the tap in my back garden, freezing cold and accessible to me only hours prior. Of the water bottles in the back of my fridge, of chlorinated water in a swimming pool that I could jump into, of fresh water from a mountainous stream. I knew I had to survive.

Part 2

It felt as though some external force pulled me from the wreckage. I was somehow hauled away from the fire and the smoke. The crash happened quickly after we took off… maybe twenty minutes. I need to take a deep breathe to relay this part.

When we crashed, my nervous system took over. Everything was an automatic reaction. To my left, my father was crushed. His head drooped over, his eyes were open, but I didn’t recognise them. I tried to move but my foot was trapped underneath the front of the Cessna. My knee was bent at an awkward angle with large gashes down the side of my calves. I looked behind me, my mother was nowhere to be seen. Whereas barely minutes early, I had laughed with her and seen the shine in her eyes, she was not in her seat anymore. I know now she had been ejected from the plane and lay twenty or so metres away. She died from a traumatic brain injury.

Then came the fire. It spread to my father first. I saw flames licking the side of his face, grappling the skin and singing his hair. Within moments, he was engulfed and I couldn’t breathe. My hands flew to his face to try and starve the fire of oxygen, to stop it burning him. I didn’t think of the pain, I only thought of my wonderful father, who had been there for me every single day. Who had driven me home late at night when I had drank too much with my friends, who came to graduation with the biggest bunch of flowers that my friends all envied.

I thought of the books he read every night – of Concorde, of plane engines, of famous pilots. It’s strange, I didn’t think he’d die. I was only thinking ‘he needs his eyes! He needs to read!’ when I flapped mercilessly at the flames now attacking his eyelids. There came a moment where the smoke was too much, and the flames started to attack me, and I turned my attention to my knee and foot. The metal was hissing, almost glowing, from the heat. It was one of those ‘superhuman’ survival instincts when I lifted the console in front of me with an incredible strength paired with a deep, guttural groan. I freed my leg and I was out of the plane, limping away though it felt like I was running. When I left the burning plane, the air was still hotter. Like opening an oven door but putting your entire body in the oven.

I screamed and screamed – hoping someone would hear me. All that I was surrounded by was fields upon fields. The horizon felt like it was laughing at me, as there was nothing on it – just a blue sky meeting sunburnt fields. In the wreck, I lost my shoes. Now, the bottom of my foot began to ache from the heat of the ground that could have cooked an egg. Like I had walked away from a burning plane crash onto a burning grill. I was just a piece of meat to the harshness of the heat.

Part 3

I have spent 30 summers since the crash inside. The first year after the crash, I ventured from my apartment in July. I still had crutches, my legs trembled, and I took 10 minutes to do the 30 second trip to the bottom of the apartment building and out of the front door. I was told to get outside; they told me I looked pale and worn-out. That sun would do me good!

Yet, when my face first met the rays of sun a metre from my apartment door, it was once again the licks of flame from the plane crash. They grasped my face like they grasped my father’s. My bandaged hands flew to my face, and I tried to pat the fire out just like I did to my dad, and I collapsed to the floor screaming and crying. On the floor, the heated sidewalk stung my arms, and I felt the sharpness of the starved, yellow grass once more. Around me, all I could see was miles of field. I begged for forgiveness.

The second year, I ventured outside again but committed only to standing in the shade. I went with a nurse, who held me tightly as I trembled with fear. I managed a few moments in the shade, watching the golden ground from safety. Though, the warmed air began to feel thick once more and I was suddenly breathing in thick smoke, my leg trapped below molten metal. A child skipping and laughing gleefully in front of me became a vision of my mother’s face as she laughed just before we crashed. The child then turned into a bloody, contorted mess right in front of me on the sunny part of the sidewalk. I shrieked and bellowed. I demanded the universe set me free. The child began to cry, and the nurse ushered me quickly back into the building.

I have tried every type of therapy. I stick to the outside world only between September and June – though only when the temperature is just low enough for me to not feel even an ounce of heat. I take care to stick into the shade. My skin is void of any colour bar the deep, purple circles under my eyes. I am bleached by time and the heat from 30 years ago, and often I wonder how I would fare if the crash didn’t happen in a heatwave. The heat doesn’t just carry the summer, but a deep, psychological trauma. The heat brings my mother and father back from the dead. The heat brings back that wretched Thursday in July that changed my life forever. I wonder if I will stop living in the past, but I think I may never have to see the sun again. The only people who will never see the sun again are those who are dead.