Future Writer Chapter 21 (4 pages)

Chapter 21 Conclusion

As a tremendous light and thunder subsides, I find myself standing, looking out across an ocean.

"Where am I?" I am thinking.

I am standing at the south facing railing of the oil rig, watching an approaching storm.

"How did I end up here?"

"Sam!" yells Zeke, my supervisor, "Slick detected at eight mile. We need a welder with your expertise, and you're the only one we've got."

"Zeke?!!" I tell him in astonishment.

"Are you alright buddy?" he asks.

"Yea... Yea, sure, I'm fine."

"You look as though you've seen a ghost," he says to me.

"I'm sorry," I tell him. "You can count on me Zeke. Where is the muster?"

"On the Blue Gill."

"What about an assistant?"

"We have a new guy that is trying to make a reputation for himself. I think we can talk him into it."

"Get him down there and I'll brief him on the way to the site."

I rush to the berthing compartment for my thermal underwear, foul weather gear, and personal spare oxygen supply, only this time when I entered my stateroom there is no package on my bunk. The ledger is not there.

The rest of the day went just as it did almost a year ago. I met Randy and so on.

Later that evening, the ledger still has not arrived as I thought it would.

"Was it all a dream?"

After I walked back from the weight room, Jose enters the room with our tickets to Caracas and Rio de Janeiro.

Two week after receiving the tickets for the annual company travel package tour to Caracas and continuing on to Rio De Janeiro, I am boarding a plane that once opened Pandora's Box. The weather in Corpus Christi is hot and sunny, with a light breeze from the southwest. The air conditioning on the plane makes me oblivious to all of that. Soon the aircraft is in the air and heading south across the Gulf of Mexico. From my backpack I look to where a ledger once was.

I wonder what will become of this trip without the ledger. If it becomes fate that this trip ends in the deepest jungle of South America, how am I to write my way out of it. All I can do is to let the cards of fate fall and do the best that I can with what I'm dealt.

The plane makes its descent into Caracas. Once on the ground, I part company with my colleges as I make my way the gate for my adjoining flight. Soon it is time to board the continuing aircraft where it all started.

We are directed down a stairwell that leads on to the tarmac. When the outside doors open, a sense of deja vu comes over me as I see in amazement, a lime green Beechcraft B-300 Air King, just as before. The aircraft has yellow stripes and an emblem of a tropical bird on the tail.

I walk slowly up the three steps leading into the tail section of the aircraft. In the aircraft are only ten lime green seats with bright yellow carpeting, two rows of five seats, separated by an aisle.

"I must do this," I think to myself.

I sit across from the door in the rear of the cabin. Looking forward I could see movement in the cockpit. The cockpit is separated by a left and a right partition with an opening for passage in the center. The pilots are busily flipping switches and turning knobs to insure that the aircraft's systems are operating properly.

"Alexia are you up there?" I am thinking to myself.

I lift myself out of the seat to see if Alexia is there but at the same time, passengers boarding after me are also filtering on to the plane so I sit back down. In the front, left seat, sits an Hispanic man in a business suit and briefcase. Next to him, a sandy haired man wearing a tropical shirt and knee length shorts. Behind them is a young man in his early twenties with his girl friend who is seated in the seat across the aisle from him. Behind them are two men dressed as if to be going on safari. Two men and a woman, who look to be at retirement age, takes the remaining three seats around me.It's as if I'm living Clancy's story again.

Shortly after the passengers have been seated, I lift myself out of the seat once again, but the pilot stands up from the left pilot's seat and walks down the center aisle to the rear of the aircraft to close the door.

He walks back to the front of the cabin and announces, "Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen. This flight should take four hours and twenty five minutes. I would like to ask that when you are in your seat, that you keep your seat belts buckled. The lavatory is at the rear of the aircraft. Food and drinks are across from the lavatory. Help yourself, and have a nice flight."

I can not believe this!" I kept thinking. Before long the plane is in flight. Looking out from the window, I can see the rugged, South American Rain forest below. Vegetation and endless waterways seemed to go on forever. I find this much more interesting than most flights due to low altitude flown by this smaller aircraft, but more than all of this, I must find out about Alexia. I once again lift myself out of my seat when the pilot announces turbulent weather ahead and we need to stay in our seats. I sit back down as I am instructed. The freak storm which caused us the crash is

surrounding us just as before. The aircraft maneuvers hard to escape the quickly approaching storm. Lightning crashing all around us. I can feel the plane trying to climb. Is it going to make it? I look out the window desperately for signs of blue sky rather than the jungle floor. The small plane rocks and jolts as it fights for life.

"I feel as though I'm riding a bumpy roller coaster," says one the my neighboring passengers.

Still the plane fight the whether.

"Are we to crash? Is that Alexia? What is to happen to us?" keeps echoing in my mind.

Lightening and thunder continue crashing around us. I can faintly see something that will answer, at least, two of my questions.

Slowly ever slowly I see the clouds becoming thinner and lighter. The plane is climbing. Then like a sign from heaven the plane burst through the clouds and sunshine blast its glory into the face of the passengers.

"We're not going to crash!" I almost said out loud. Soon the plane makes its descent into Rio de Janeiro. At the airport I am told by the pilot that I must leave the plane. The navigator is still seated in the aircraft. In the terminal I walk to the scenic windows in front of the plane. I see a dark head of hair moving around behind the glare of the windshield.

"Is it her? I must know!"

Then I see the figure of the navigator walk to the exit of the aircraft. I nervously stand in front of the gate. The doors swing open and my heart lodges itself into my throat.

"Alexia?" I say to her, "Is that you?"

"Have we met?" she asks me.

"Do you know of a man named Ivan Meddlkov?"

"No, should I?"

"No," I said to her.

"You do look familiar. Are you sure we haven't met?"

"No, but we will."

THE END.