A Girl Gets Her Wish
She has been sitting and writing for the past two hours. She is collecting her thoughts in a diary, a diary that has been with her over the last year, and recorded every single one of the 364 previous days. Today is the 365th. Today she writes this:
“Dear Diary,
I was wrong. He did it. He threw me out like a bag of trash, and I sat on the curb for two hours hoping he would let me back in. But then the trash men came and took me away like they always do. This hurts. It hurts from deep within, deeper than I expected. It feels like a bruise on my lungs. It hurts to breathe. It hurts to think. The act of forcing air into my body and moving my blood hurts.
He denies ever giving me this infection, and refuses to pay for my treatment. He denies that he ever met me or knows who I am. I’ll spend the next month or two homeless, at least until I get sick from some piece of food in a trashcan, then I’ll cough myself to sleep forever.
When I get off this plane, I’ll wander around the terminal for a few hours, spend my last 5 dollars on some fast food, try to find a place to sleep for the night, and hope I can do it all again tomorrow. I need to find some blankets and a couple of jackets, maybe get in with one of those shelters.
Maybe I should just kill myself and get it over with.
Do you think God could forgive me for that after the things I did? Probably not. Probably I’ll wake up the moment after and instead of freezing I’ll be burning…“
When she finishes this last line she cries, distinctly at first, but then she buries her face into her hooded sweatshirt and tilts her head against the window. She drops her pen onto the floor and it rolls away. Her diary lays open on her lap, her left arm barely covering the writing. She tries to keep her sobs muted, quiet. She does not want to be noticed right now. Right now she wants to be alone. She curls her knees inward towards her chest and pulls the drawstrings tight around her face. She wants to surround herself with the fact that she is going to die cold and alone and soon. The last weeks of her life, which she must endure, will be painful and humiliating. She wants to sit with this reality and let it sink in. If she is to get through it, she must accept it.
Two seats away, sitting directly across from her, across the aisle, is a young Palestinian man. She has been too absorbed in her own thoughts and pain to notice him. But then, he did not want to be noticed, not at first anyway.
He boarded the plane with a mission. But in the days leading up to this flight, doubts took over his mind. No matter how they assured him, as the actual act drew closer, hesitation swarmed all over him. Now, two hours into the flight, he has very nearly talked himself out of it. He was always reluctant, but his faith had given him strength, the fortitude to soldier on. Faith was eluding him now, now that his martyrdom was only minutes away. His hands shake and his palms sweat. His eyes dart nervously around the cabin, looking for anything, anything that will steel his resolve. These people are not demons to be slaughtered in the name of god, he realizes, they are people like himself. Now that he is close to dying with them, the thought that god would reward murder is slipping away. Now he can only believe that he would suffer an eternity in hell for taking these innocent lives for no reason.
And whether it is rationale or cowardice, he has very nearly talked himself out of it. But as a show of faith, he bows his head and prays, one last time. He asks for a sign from god, a sign that will tell him what he is supposed to do.
He hears the muted sobs of a young girl across the aisle. He hears her and takes a keen interest. He undoes his seatbelt, leaning across the aisle and the empty seat. He sees her diary and he reads the entire day’s entry thus far. Jennifer does not notice him at first, but she senses the looming presence and quickly turns to face him. She rubs the tears from her eyes and pulls her hood back. She snatches the diary up and tucks it under her armpit.
“Can I help you?” she asks. His answer does not make sense at first.
“No miss. It is I who can help you.” He looks deep into her eyes and thanks god for the message. She struggles for a response. He does not wait for one. He strides to the front of the plane, tearing off his suit jacket. He pulls out a small chewing gum pack and opens it, exposing the plastic explosive inside. He attaches it to the cockpit door and jams two wires inside, then attaching the wires to a hand-held detonator. The rest of the plane has caught on and is panicked. He looks up just in time to see a large man sprinting forward from the back of the plane. The act is forced upon him now, not that he cares anymore, his doubt is gone, this was the right thing to do in the end.
He looks to his right one last time, catching her eyes and holding her gaze for mere seconds. She mouths to him, “Thank you.” He winks at her and pushes down on the trigger.
Click.
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