This is yet *another* excerpt from "The Devil on Flight 1661". In it, Tom is thinking about when he had decided that Love was what he felt for his friend Jen. A strange voice enters his head and the 767 (changed from the original DC-10) enters a bad Thunderstorm.
The Thunderstorm shakes up the plane, and maybe a little more.
Watching the lightening dance in the sky, Tom see's something that could not be.
Read on to find out:
"... But the problem with saying that was, of course, Rhonda. How did he truly feel about his wife? He felt that he still loved her; he just wasn’t in love with her. Those first few months he meant to talk to his wife, to tell her how he felt, to make an honest attempt to get back to where they started.
But each time he tried, he couldn’t find the right words, and before Tom realized what had happened, it was simply easier to live the double life. He was a seemingly caring, loving husband in one, and completely enamored with Jen in another. He was lying to everyone, including himself and he knew it, but it didn’t matter. When he was near Jen, when they shared a hug of concern or a smile or a flirt, the only thing that existed in the whole world was her.
And that left Rhonda out in the cold didn’t it? A voice inside Tom’s head was asking.
Shut up. Tom was used to battling with himself, and his inner dialog often scared him. How many crazies out there were doing that same thing?
He couldn’t be too crazy though, after all he’d been to a shrink many times and the only they ever did was give him pills. Everyone takes pills, don’t they?
You’re a monster, Tom. You broke that girl’s heart. Maybe both of them, the voice chided.
Yeah, I know. Both voices were the same, yet somehow different. Tom could always tell them apart. He always figured the voice was what people were referring to when they talked about their conscious.
But the voice was different now. It was darker, somehow mean, almost cruel.
Do you?
But tome never finished the thought. The plane shook suddenly, for the briefest of moments Tom thought it was falling out of the sky. Startled people woke from their sleep, necks stiff and legs tingling. The baby in the back started up again.
With an audible ding the seat belt sign came back on.
“This is the Captain we’re turning on the seatbelt sign and asking that you remain in your seats, looks like we’ve ran into a thunderstorm. We’re trying to get clearance for a higher altitude out of the turbulence but until then, please stay seated. Thank you.”
The engines whined as they spun up to throttle. Flashes of light outside Tom’s window told him that they had indeed flown right into a storm. From the amount of lightening it looked like a big one too.
Tom rested his chin against his fist and watched the lightening dance outside his window. The wing blocked most of his view but he could see a good portion of sky behind it.
The lightening played from cloud to cloud; the bursts of white fire burned into Tom’s tired eyes. The lightening would strike and then disappear, but he image remained in his retinas. It was majestic, the dark clouds billowing out all around them, the lightening shooting through the air; a ballerina on a stage of soft cotton. Night turned to day in Tom’s viewport. The largest bolt Tom had ever seen blazed across the sky, its tendrils reached out like fingers to all the other clouds granting each one its electric touch. Tom thought it was beautiful; the last wild soul left of the planet.
That’s when he saw the creature on the wing. ..."
Hope you enjoyed this excerpt, more as it comes in my mind. Soon, Tom will face himself, his failures, his sins, and the demon that is his soul.
Peace.
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