Glass - Part 1

After pulling the passengers of QA915 from the mangled wreckage of their plane, the bemused and humbled Qantas administration quickly arranged for temporary accommodation. With the threat of lawsuits lingering on the horizon, they opted for the cheapest hotel available in the spectrum of high class establishments.

Therefore, the survivors were placed in the comfort of the Waterford.

The graze on Matt's forehead left him looking wild and disheveled. He swept his hair from his face as he waited at reception. Having just been released from the hospital, he was rattled by the bizarre actions of both the airport and hospital staff. 

"Oh my God!" cried a receptionist with wide eyes gripping the edge of the desk. "What happened to your face?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Your face!" 

"I was in an accident" he replied.

"Heavy shit!" she responded. He watched uncomfortably as she felt her own forehead.

He reached for the registration sheet resting before the woman. As he signed it, his hair falling back down over his eyes, the wide eyed receptionist reached forward and tentatively ran her fingers across his graze. 

"That's fucked" she asserted, returning to her chair where she reveled in its ability to swivel. 

". . . There's rue for you, and here's some for me; we may call it herb of grace o'Sundays; O, you must wear your rue with a difference." 

Caitlin Kearney's heart was pounding in her chest. Vigourously thrashing in an attempt to burst free of its cage. Fervor coursed through her veins as she madly bestowed flowers on the rest of the cast. 

She was Ophelia, not pure and sweet, but sensual and passionate. The stage lights practically cooked the stage but the energy of the performance was overwhelming. She fell to the floor, a disheveled heap; lamenting the loss of her father, her lover and her integrity. 

With grace and poise, she left the stage and drowned.

Backstage she enthusiastically downed her bottle of water, her celtic skin almost glowing in the dark. 

However, even as she drank, something irked her. The lack of dialogue on stage was somewhat unnerving. Instead, a thrumming from the amphitheater swelled exponentially. The rain became a storm; the storm became a waterfall. Peering from behind the curtains, upstage left, she stood in awe.
"Caitlin! Caitlin! Caitlin! . . ."
Tears welled.

In the ritzy bathroom of the hotel suite, Jess threw water on her face before pressing her fingers into her temples. Everything was covered by a thin layer of plaster sprayed forth from between the tiles at the moment of the blast. She swore repeatedly under her breath. 
As the tails of two dissolving disprin intertwined without an audience, Jess slipped on the most modest heels in her arsenal. 


Two floors above Nicholas Talbot writhed dramatically on the carpet of his suite. He clawed at his calves as growing pains, devoid of demands, threatened to cleave his legs apart. Teeth gnashed. His fingernails drew blood which trickled like molten tar. 
Suddenly, the pain was gone. Staring at the ceiling, he released his legs and lay, spread eagle. Beneath his now burgundy fingernails, the fibers reminded him of his location. Beads of sweat rolled across his body. Lines of sweet relief etched in his tired frame. 
He considered calling an ambulance. The fear of provoking another spasm, however, kept him firmly anchored to the ground. 
Nick's triceps trembled momentarily. He closed his eyes.

"This is ridiculous!"
The master of ceremonies glanced again at his watch. Twenty minutes had passed since his arrival and still the crowd continued their standing ovation. The applause swelled sporadically.
"Where's Caitlin?"
A crying usher replied in a joyous gargle;
"Backstage."
As the plump master scurried up the aisle, Caitlin sat overwhelmed in the throne of the king.
"What the hell happened?" he cried, barely audible over the audience.
"I don't know; I delivered my lines and they've been clapping ever since."
His eyes watered suddenly and hands met in a flurry.
"Classic! Beautiful! Perfect!"


On the street Jessica walked unevenly. Every step peppered with vertigo. Again, she rubbed her temple and looked only at the cobblestones. She navigated with great frustration, the labyrinthine route to the Australian embassy. Sporadically, she would halt and lean against the nearest wall; her loud muttering and uncouth visage attracting the attention of the pedestrians.

From across the road, a young man peered with aggressive opportunism at her expensive looking bag.
Gripping the bricks as though braving a cliff face, Jess pulled herself into an alley. Enchanted window shoppers walked past on the other side; framed by desultory dumpsters. Her heel slipped in the cobblestones; a mountaineer lost to an unseen crevasse. She roared in pain, falling between two of the noxious bins. She screwed her eyes, breathed deeply and clasped her ankle; unable to hear the soft approaching footsteps.
Something clawed at her brain; clawed and wailed. Even closed, her eyes seared white.
Suddenly, the stranger grabbed at the bag straps and tugged with vigour. After slipping into the concealed alcove, he growled savagely.
Jess struck blindly. She swung at the air, effectively blind. With her good leg she kicked wildly. The stranger grasped at her arm, eventually catching the second in the midst of her thrashing. Her foot met his jaw with great fury, the corner of the heal tearing the underside of his chin.
"Bitch!"
As the stranger charged, the pain abruptly disappeared. With an ethereal crash, the stranger fell back. Between the two, a translucent disc span rapidly. Both lying on the ground, they stared in awe at the apparition, shimmering with the faintest of blue tints. Crackling slightly, it disappeared.
She watched as her assailant snarled at leapt. His hand extended in the air, fingers splayed.
As his fingers first scraped at her neck, they once again heard the peculiar crackling whir, followed by a crunch . . . and a slurp.   
Her eyes opened to the spectacle. Warm blood oozed down her face and arms. The blue disc hovered inches before her, its orientation reversed. On the other side, the young man stared blankly at the ground, the disc embedded in his chest skipped like a circular saw in a block too dense. As she watched in shock, droplets of blood continued to spray her along with wall behind, as they were ejected like loose clay for a pottery wheel.  

A Seemingly Unrelated Occurrence - Part 3

Millions of snowflakes, fine and delicate, drifted quietly before settling on the cement pavements and bitumen of the street. Each one, minute as they were, glistened softly in the morning light just barely penetrating the clouds. A thick layer of snow had fallen overnight, rendering the road entirely inaccessible.
Each snowflake that fell captured the rays of the sun as it periodically span during its descent. A dance of sheen and shadows played out to an audience far too large and disinterested to notice. Each arm of the flakes, slender and outstretched captured the rays uniquely; a lost spectacle.

The street itself was lined with hotels and restaurants, made regal and whimsical by the still unmelted snow. The second largest of these hotels was the Waterford. With a well maintained exterior and four faux gold stars boasting its relative success, the hotel reached up to the sky. Much of the appeal came from the wide, well placed windows looking down on the surrounding streets with their charming pastiche of quaint and modern.
Behind one window on the fourth floor, a young man checked his front suit pocket for the engagement ring he was to offer to his fiance-to-be. The horror he felt in feeling nothing would go unabated until he checked his pants pockets in slightly over forty minutes.
Behind another window, on the sixth floor; a mother, estranged from her children for many years, prepared to visit her son unannounced. She nervously played out their meeting in her head as she stopped briefly to glance at a photo of their family in its infancy.
Three floors up, a newly married couple enjoyed a breakfast of bacon and eggs whilst monitoring the pedestrians from far away. All this was done in the nude.
On the eleventh floor. A young woman searched furiously for her passport so as to leave England in favour of Norway. She could not find it; instead, she exploded.

The window, shattered by the blast, was dispersed into the brisk winter air. Thousands of shards of glass span freely and exquisitely. The flames that consumed the remainder of the hotel room were captured by the glass each time the shards turned to face the destruction. In that instance, the shards, brilliantly lit with flickering exhibitions of red and orange; fell gracefully and even slowly from the eleventh floor. Interspersed, the snowflakes continued to cascade, still dancing to the light.
In seconds that could almost have lingered for hours, the shards had buried themselves in the snow.

A Seemingly Unrelated Occurrence - Part 2

At four o'clock in the morning, the world was cold and unwelcoming. A layer of dew combined with a frosty morning breeze made for an unattractive prediction of the day to come.
In the grungy dank space of the youth hostel, Matt pressed the last shirt into his back pack and sat despondently for a few moments.
The light bulb flickered slightly as he pulled from his pocket a crinkled receipt from one of the many local Macdonalds outlets. Leaning against the greyish blue plaster wall, he scrawled a message on the paper before folding it into a tight square. In barely recognisable letters on one side was the name; "Nat", superimposed sloppily over the words "big mac".
He stepped lightly over strewn clothes and shoes; the festering packaging of cheap take away meals and empty cans. Careful not to wake the others, he careened towards the door, pulling his beanie on in the process.
Nearing the exit, he turned to glance back at the room, left in such disarray that one might assume tripping whilst moving towards the bunk beds was a potential drowning risk. Lying peacefully in their beds, he faced his fellow survivors whom he had increasingly come to know as friends. Nonetheless, he turned again, sighed and continued. At the bed closest to the door he leant quietly over the sleeping girl and in her open palm, hanging over the bedside, placed his note.

Twenty five minutes later, Matt boarded his country train, deliberately choosing an isolated carriage towards the back. As it pulled from the station, he became aware of the extent of his exhaustion, and lethargically rested his head against his bag. On the horizon, the first rays of sunlight burst through the clouds; streaks of brilliant red resting on a largely grey sky.

A Seemingly Unrelated Occurrence - Part 1

"Natalie!"
The darkness was overwhelming, pulling at him . . . smothering. David staggered forwards, reaching tentatively for something to hold. Far overhead, the elevator cables brushed against each other, the ensuing clang echoing down the shaft.
"Natalie!" No response. Eventually, his hands found the cable and slowly, he lowered himself into a crouch. Shivering slightly with clenched teeth and fingers white with strain, he crawled along the metal surface. Before long, his hand met the space between the elevator itself and the wall of the shaft. Still unadjusted to the darkness, he was oblivious to the drop of sweat that fell from his black hair, between the metal and concrete, into the dank, deep chasm below.
"Natalie, answer me!" he cried, "Where are you?"
The light from the chamber below, previously allowing them some small amount of vision, had promptly and unexpectedly disappeared. Breathing heavily he tugged at the emergency door into the main compartment. David could feel the darkness tugging him up away from the opening. His breathing quickened as the impenetrable surrounding nothingness wrapped around his waist and ankles.
Once opened, he futilely gazed inside. Natalie was gone; how and where he couldn't say but he knew even as he called for his sister that her answer would not be returned. He inhaled deeply, painfully conscious of the bitterly cold air caressing his neck. Natalie was gone, yet despite the dense, suffocating blackness distorting his senses, he knew, he was not alone; the darkness was watching.
Feeling once more for the elevator cables, David, unaware of his surroundings, began the long, deserted climb into the incomprehensible shaft above.

Long Way To Fall - Part 5

12th of February, 10:29 am


A cacophony of alarms sounded as A-ha pledged their impending departure. At the same time, the room periodically flashed red, a fitting representation of the mental state of the scientist, frantically attempting to abort the experiment.
"Warning. Warning. Warning."
Inside the glass tank, the rat furiously scratched at the glass while the machine above it trembled dangerously. It's hum had escalated to a roar and it loomed over the rodent; a ravenous mechanical predator.
The scientist was growing dizzy, his fingers slipped on the keyboard and his brow glistened with sweat. The bolts holding the machine together rattled in their sockets, washers slowly turning.
In the complex around, Swiss technicians barked orders and fled anxiously into the surrounding snow. Rats in other tanks and observation rooms clawed at the glass and wire, fearful for their future.


9:45 am (GMT)


The moment of separation was always unnerving. The ground seemed to lurch in protest, and the helicopter, forever fighting to return to its lover's arms, was wrenched from the ground. Inside, detached from the tender farewell occurring below aside from the momentary sinking of their hearts; excited tourists awaited the impending views.


11th of February, 11:56 pm


Jarrad cracked his knuckles. In the absence of any other sound, the act was disconcertingly loud. Jessica, without lifting an eyelid, registered the noise with disdain. Clare and Katherine slept soundly, resting against each other.
In the depths of the night, Matt awoke. Partially due to the snoring of the old man to his immediate left and partially due to his dreams of empty city streets. In the cold, dry air of the cabin, he found himself wondering as to the whereabouts of the tourist from the morning's endeavours. The thought didn't linger.


12th of February, 10:00 am 


"Ladies and Gentlemen, just a message from your captain to say that we are beginning our descent and will be arriving at Heathrow Airport at approximately 10:36 Greenwich Mean Time." 


10:02 am, Dolpa, Nepal


The breeze was icy and sun blazing as the people of the village went about their daily errands. Life in Dolpa was slow. Situated in such an unforgiving location, it followed naturally that life was founded on the drive to survive. 
The morning was brisk and apart from the rapidly approaching catastrophe, completely normal.


10:01 am


A dull yellow glow signaled the importance of seat belts to the passengers on board. The route information displayed on the individual screens was interrupted briefly with a cautionary safety message. Lucy exhaled deeply, prying her nails out from within the faux leather arm rests. 


10: 12 am


Steph, happy to be nearing the end of the flight, strapped herself to the steward's chair with gusto and sipped her sub-soil coffee. Meanwhile Conor made his way up the opposite aisle, reminding passengers to correct the position of their tray tables.


10: 14 am 


A hot air balloon cruised majestically over the beaches below. Casting a shadow on the sand; to which it would inevitably return.


10:15 am


Michael scrawled a note in his commonplace book, "planes make for dramatic short story locations." Yet another slice of infinite wisdom.


10:16:12 am


In the glass tank, the rat clawed madly, shaving flecks of glass from the walls.


10:16:23 am


The military exercise approached its completion. A successful venture operating without any need for interference.


10:16:41 am


QA915 descended through a dense cloud, the land beneath them rapidly losing its abstract, semi-cubist quality.


10:16:54 am


Numerous helicopter blades span on their respective axes.


10:16:55 am


Captain Phillips conversed calmly with the Heathrow ground control staff.


10:16:58 am


Ellen chewed loudly on a stick of gum offered to her by Christina. The cabin pressure shifted sporadically, much to the chagrin of the passengers.


10:16:59 am


Conor removed his pin once more.

***

12th of February, 10:17 am


In the mountains of Switzerland, surrounded by snow and screaming Scandinavian research scientists, a siren sounded so as to herald the crucial malfunction within the station. Focus groups of rodent escapees fled down abandoned corridors as the bemused employees watched from the mountainside. The savage tremors of the machine within the complex ceased briefly; enough to attract the attention of the rat below. Then, instantly, the machine was gone; separated into thousands of shrapnel shards. The resulting fireball swallowed the building instantaneously, pulling concrete foundations apart. Even as the machine was vaporised, it left its parting gift; a pulse. In nano seconds, the alarm circuits disengaged, the emergency lights dimmed and the satellite contact with central Geneva was lost to the archives of space. Before the blast loosened the snow shelves into an horrifying cascade, the pulse had been carried away.
At unfathomable speed it travelled through the atmosphere, expanding like ripples in water. In milliseconds it had covered Europe and shortly after, the world. All the while it maintained a near constant altitude aside from the occasional atmospheric phenomena that adjusted its course.
For the brief moments of the pulse's existence, it had engulfed the sky; slipping between clouds, between metals, between fabric, skin and cells.

12th of February, 10:00 am 

"Ladies and Gentlemen, just a message from your captain to say that we are beginning our descent and will be arriving at Heathrow Airport at approximately 10:36 Greenwich Mean Time." 

12th of February, 10:17 am

Only moments before, the passengers of QA915 had been sitting uncomfortably in their seats, resigned to their thoughts. The ground approached and they stirred awkwardly. Alison attempted to adjust her leggings without standing up whilst Eddie watched in affectionate judgement. Conor challenged Steph to a game of chopsticks. Michael took further notes in his journal. Lucy examined a diagram of the body's central nervous system and Juliana read over notes for the next speech she was to deliver. 

However, as they did so, an electromagnetic pulse made pilgrimage around them. It permeated the plane, oscillating through the components and passengers alike. 

With a deafening crunch, the engines stalled. The intestines of everyone on board were left behind as the plane began to plummet nose first. They screamed together; an inarticulate swansong as emergency oxygen masks were deployed. 

Over the Atlantic Ocean, a host of military training planes simultaneously lost contact with the main land. Before any equilibrium could return, the second in the formation had collided with the first, creating a colossal blast of flames and wing fragments, through which the rest of the jets descended, directly into the sea. 

In the cock pit, Captain Phillips stared bemused at a panel of flashing lights and a rapidly falling altitude reading. 

In Belongil Beach, Australia, a hot air balloon fell from the sky on a dramatic angle. One previously awed holiday maker swung wildly from a rope hanging from the basket. Inside said basket, the irritating instructor, holding onto the same rope for support, desperately attempted to reignite the gas canister inflating the balloon. 

Steph unbuckled herself as an avalanche of small personal belongings rolled towards her and Conor down the inclined aisles. 

"Emergency brace positions!" she roared to the hysterical congregation. A violent shudder swept her off her feet, further exacerbating the crowd's collective horror. 

Every rotation, the blades of the helicopter slowed slightly, the effect of which was a rapid rotation of the body. Inside, the copilot aggressively threw emergency parachutes at the family inside. Her orders were nearly lost to the dizzying sound of the wind outside. Before long, they were swept away by the wind as it filled their parachutes. Even so, the pilot attempted to steady the craft, unable to free his own parachute from below the seat. 

In the business class section Alek's head was pushed backwards into the cushioned black leather of her seat while her fingers ripped visible lines in the arm rests. 

Cloud after cloud whipped by the windows as London grew in focus underneath them. 

Suddenly, as flashing lights ceased flashing and the engine turbines began to rotate, Captain Phillips pulled on his controller; an act felt by the rest of the people on the plane as they were forced down into their seats. 

In Dolpa, Nepal, a pulse swept through unnoticed. Not phasing the small bowl haired girl who stewed angrily. Not phasing the farmer, clinging inappropriately to his yak. Not noticed by the various citizens going about their daily lives. 

Through the glass, Natalie watched as other planes began to dive through the clouds. Here and there a plane met the ground with a frightening light display. She closed her eyes and reached for David's arm, who in turn, reached for hers. 

The ground control of Heathrow Airport, watched in a frenzy as QA915 approached the runway with a startling velocity. 

The plane trembled ferociously as the nose scraped the ground. The impractically small wheels were next, and as expected, the force caused them to bend dramatically, leaving the plane skidding wildly on the tarmac; a shower of sparks in it's wake. The underside heated precipitating large scale melting and spot fires while the aircraft slid towards the terminal. 

The crowd lurched as the plane fell onto one side, held off the ground by a wing, bending further for every second it was in contact with the ground. Conor held onto Steph as her legs dangled off one side of the seat.  

Spinning around in tight circles with one flaming wing on the ground and a series of passengers suffering from uncontainable motion sickness, the plane slowed down in front of one of Heathrow's largest viewing windows. 

Once it had halted, every single passenger, white with shock and still inclined in their seats as they were; questioned their status as "alive". 

From within the terminal, English holiday makers waiting for their own flights watched in shock. 

The emergency slides were deployed; one pointing up into the sky, the other almost vertically into the ground. 

Long Way To Fall - Part 4

12th of February, 9:59 am (GMT), Dolpa, Nepal

Sitting amongst the scrub and dirt of the mountainside performing his job as per usual, Raju stared at his greatest love. Her long red hair billowed in the wind like wheat on a vast plain. At 42 years of age he was the most experienced herder in the village yet the respect of the community passed him by. What didn't pass him by, was lust; deep, churning and penetrating the core of his thoughts. That lust, mounting inside him, begging for release, was focussed on the specimen before him.
Her shapely curves, large eyes and piercing stare. He quivered slightly as she turned to face him. With his left hand he reached for his staff and with his right he made fists in the dirt, all the while biting down on his lower lip. She strutted towards him, hips swiveling alluringly as she did so. Before long, she was within arms length, and his quivering turned into violent spasms exuding the passion he struggled to contain.
She was a fine yak.

11th of February, 9:20 am 


"Look at him; he reads novels!"
Alison Laura Wand crouched madly, behind a bookshelf devoted to cupcakes and the numerous manuals treating them as an art form much like oil painting or marble sculpting.

"He's so beautiful." she hissed.
"He looks like a toilet cubicle from Newtown", replied her good friend, the curly haired, effervescent Eddie Bellemore, deliberately talking slightly louder than appropriate for a book store.
"Shut up!" swiping a strand of her blue hair from her eyes. She was suddenly conscious of the first touches of blonde re-growth emerging at her scalp but still pressed her face further into the cavity between books on the shelf and observed the stranger at the other side of the store.
A sleeve of tattoos climbed up the stranger's arm; one in particular being a carving knife. A patch of skin had been left unmarked in the middle of the blade so as to maintain an illusion that the knife had been driven underneath a portion of his flesh.
"Look!" she half whispered, half yelled, resulting in a strangled screech like that of a dying seagull. "He's got stretchers."
She looked up at her friend, eyes wide and smile exposing child-like dimples.
"That's gross."
"It's not fucking gross."
Eddie pushed his leopard print glasses slightly further up his nose and shot the ink-worn stranger a look that could slow the life functions of any mammal enough to keep it alive long past its expiry date.
"I wonder if he watches anime?" she asked herself whilst pulling her black and white knee-length socks closer to the hem of her skirt.
"Alison," cried Eddie, truncating his vowels for effect. "Why am I in a bookstore, watching you practically make out with a photo of a cupcake in order to spy on some dirty junky when there are literally hundreds of bottles of duty free alcohol waiting to be purchased in this airport?"
"Fine," she snarled grabbing his arm and steering him back into the terminal.
 As they joined the crowd Alison glimpsed the stranger. Showcasing the obscenities tattooed onto his second phalanges, he readjusted his greasy fringe so as to fully cover one eye, and partially eclipse the other.

Her two and his half an eye met.

He winked playfully.

She smiled enthusiastically.

Sins absolved and with arms now linked, she and Eddie moved towards their unusual and troublesome fate.

11th of February, 9:15 am

A pervasive hum reached Jessica's ears as she walked her tightrope to the gate. After removing her glasses and gracefully depositing her empty easyway cup in a garbage bin, she felt considerably more primed for the business trip ahead. 

However, her attention was momentarily grabbed by the possessive murmur assailing her senses. 

To her left was a leather arm chair backed against a pylon. In the chair was a young man of about her own age, sprawled so that his long, svelte limbs protruded at strange angles. His head was bent back, staring vacantly at the ceiling showcasing his prominent adams apple. The man didn't stir; an eerie stillness clung to him like the decorative spiderwebs in a long abandoned house. 

"Shit," whispered Jessica as she tentatively watched him do nothing. The hum was disconcerting. 

"Are you ok?" 

His head rolled slightly to the side further building to the strange image of contortion. She let go of her travel bag handle and slowly approached him. His glassy green eyes betrayed an absence of life.

Extending her arm, she sliced through the aforementioned pervasive hum; now inexplicably deafening, with one of her ornate talons. 

With great speed, she prodded him in the face. 

As if supported by invisible springs, Nicholas Talbot burst forth from the massage chair to which he had melted. 

"Time!" he shouted, whilst concurrently shaking his limbs and cracking his neck. 

Jess had jumped back slightly following her revitalisation of the seemingly deceased stranger.

"What?"

"Time, what's the time?"

"Around a quarter to nine" 

"Ok, what's the date?" 

Eyebrows raised.

"How long were you in that chair?" she asked. 

"I flew into Sydney from Melbourne on the 10th of February; I was planning on just waiting until the next morning and sleeping on the flight to London but then I found this chair."

"I see".

They stared at each other somewhat blankly; standing in a rapidly filling pool of silence. 

"So what's the date?"

"Oh," her bemusement postponed, "It's the 11th of February."

In a single movement, he pivoted on one foot, rhythmically flicking the other. With bemusement resumed, Jess gazed, stony resolution intact, as Nicholas jived his way down the tiles in front of her. 

11th of February, 9:40 am

"Thank you for your cooperation, in future it's best that you tell the airport staff the truth from the moment you check in."

Clare looked the security guard in his eyes, tilted her head slightly forwards, and furrowed her eyebrows. The effect of which was a tension so strong it was felt by the very foundations of the building. 

"Thanks," replied Katherine, smiling awkwardly as she dragged her friend from their side of the table in the presumptuously named "Investigation Room". 

11th of February, 10:00 am

Conor Cannon, standing patiently on the gangway perpetually removed and realigned his Qantas employee badge. Face creased in focus, he threaded the needle through his starch white shirt as though administering stitches to the mammothrept of an influential surgeon. 

"Conor!" Steph Marshall, his friend and coworker's voice echoed down the corridor, causing all the passengers to turn in shock. "Where are you? I need your help!"

After tenderly pulling the badge needle out of his chest, eliciting a series of confused expressions from the civilians, he hurried to the gate doors.

"Hi Steph!"

As always, charged with a youthful enthusiasm, he motioned for the passengers to give him their respective boarding passes. 

Steph, much taller than her colleague and stopping far less frequently to comment on the attire and "vibe" of the passenger; looked upon her friend with a mixture of sororal affection and disapproval. 

The line of people dwindled quickly due to their combined effort in scanning barcodes. 

"Ready to go?" she asked, checking the time on her timeworn stopwatch as Conor unlatched his pin once more. 

11th of February, 9:59 am

"This is your fault, you're never ready on time!" screamed Natalie Abreu, running in thongs on the pseudo-escalator footpath, slightly ahead of her twin brother David.

"Natalie!" he replied, succinct and biting, "You took over an hour find your passport."

"It was in your suitcase."

Both the Abreu's just barely stood taller than the rails of the escalated foot path yet their presence was made painfully clear to all the people seated in the individual gates as they passed them by. 

"You told me to put it there!"

"If we miss this fucking plane David -" her Portuguese temper rendering the rest of the sentence lost in a haze of frustrated sighs. 

"Hurry up!"

"What?" as she swiveled, primed for confrontation, some of her long brown hair whipping him in the face in the process, the forward momentum disagreed with her intentions. 

An overweight couple watched in disgust as the exasperated tangle of sibling careened past, slow enough so that their violent, profanity laden accusations woke the occasional sleeping traveler or child while they attempted to stand straight again. 

"Natalie look!" he cried leaping gracefully over the black rail, to the awe of their spectators. She followed suit and they sprinted with fury towards the rapidly closing doors. 

"Stop!" howled Natalie, one arm waving passionately in the air, the other still brandishing their duffel bag. 

Steph Marshall let go of the handle as the twins, sweating, nostril's flared and eyes wild arrived at the door. 

"We-need-plane-dance-" choked Nat, shuddering faintly.

"Fuck sake; we're dancers, we have a show coming up in London, we cannot afford to miss this plane, please; I implore you!"

11th of February, 10:06 am

The doors of the gate to flight QA915 closed for the final time as the crew prepared for departure into what would be a singularly unusual and eventful trip.

Long Way To Fall - Part 3

11th of February, 9:09 am


Slowly the torrent of taxis choked the loading bay before the terminal. People drifting in the torrent braced themselves for the rush to land, clutching their bags and sliding their fingers across their door handles. The hornets swarmed around them, ready to swoop as the taxi-passengers made their break for the banks.
Inside a silver service taxi, sitting together on the back seat were Christina Alvaro and Ellen Panayi. They had been awake since 9:00 am the previous morning and had spent the previous night in the various bars and clubs of Kings Cross. Most of the night was lost to their memories in a haze of strobe lights and pounding low frequency bass.

They vaguely remembered cosmopolitans and cruisers yet the rest of their time had long since made its exodus from their minds. It had been a good night. Christina stirred, semi-conscious in the back seat, pulling her phone uncomfortably from underneath her she checked the time, her eyes pained by the brightness of the phone display. 

"Oh shit," she cried as she forcefully pushed the sleeping Ellen off her lap. After straightening her short, silver dress, and hurriedly putting her shoes back on, she prodded Ellen out of her dreams of even wilder night clubs. "We're running late!" she yelled, "Stop the car!"

Dutifully the taxi stopped . . . abruptly . . . in the middle of the road . . . outside Sydney Airport.

"Ellen, get up!"

She threw herself from the car out into the fresh air and sound of the terminal, as Ellen sat up and rubbed her eyes. It was deafening, and the light was permeating her very being. "Fucking hell," she muttered, stretching every syllable to the extreme. While she opened the boot she shaded her eyes with her hand. A line of cars extended to the horizon behind them, beeping their horns like a musically stunted child with no lips forced to play a tuba in front of a large audience. 

"Piss off!", the bag appeared to be stuck, pulling it harder did little.

"Give it to me," hissed Ellen, who standing slightly shorter than the very lean, angular Christina, looked as though she were about to violently implode. Her dyed blonde plait swung erratically behind her as she wrenched the bag from the boot. Her green eyes, staring into the bright blue of Christina's, might as well have been on fire. 

The embarrassed tubist continued to play a discordant soundtrack to their tension. 

A hornet flew down from the sky, stinger at the ready. 

"You're going to ha-"

"Everyone hates you!" 

Her black jumpsuit and sequin belt reflecting her mood as she grabbed her own bag from the boot. Christina adjusted her skirt once more, moved her hair from her face and took Ellen by the arm.

"Let's get some coffee," she said pulling Ellen away from the parking inspector whom she death stared. 

As they walked away to the sound of furious drivers, Christina checked her appearance one final time in her hand mirror, the clasp mechanism wearing thin. 

12th of February, 10:13 am (GMT), Dolpa, Nepal

The air was dry. Everything was cold, even an ice cube would have felt cold, frost was covering rocks on the mountain side, and a layer of frost was covering that first layer of frost. In this cold, was a young girl, dressed in her traditional Nepalese attire, seemingly unaware of the chill, although her lips were marked by numerous cracks. She was six years old, and had recently been given a haircut by her mother, forever busy performing chores. Thoughts of the bowl placed on her scalp still haunted her and appeared to amuse the other girls. They were further down the mountain, in the village, she did not want to partake in their games, they were nasty to her.

On the mountain side, her small frame was rocked by fierce winds, and she wept with her face in her hands, and the tips of her fingers covered by her perfect hemisphere of black hair.  

Looking down she could see the houses of her quarter, the girls would be playing somewhere amongst them. Someday soon . . . she would make them understand. 

10th of February, 3:25 pm

"So as I was saying, degradation of the environment due to harmful erosion of the river bank and bed resulting in sediment corruption is the single largest problem for the turtle population of Easter Australia.

Greater lengths need to be taken if we are to ensure the survival of such a beautiful species of animal."

Juliana's glasses rested on her nose as she stared out at her modest audience, seemingly daring them to respond.

"Ms Marin Cely," came the call of a particularly zealous young news reporter, waving her pen in the air. "What do you say to the allegations that you are wasting the zoo's money on conservation projects doomed to fail?"

"Listen white girl!" she said, throwing her finger out in disapproval, its movements synchronised to the shaking of her head. "I don't know who let you in here, but here's how I do things, a) . . . I get things done, if I say I'm going to save the turtles, just try and stop me, b) I don't care about money, if I have to knock on every door in the city bullying five cent coins out of stingy uneducated bogans then I will, and c), I don't take shit from whiney white girls with more money than talent and a fetish for poking holes in other people's plans simply because they don't have the capacity to make their own!"

She bared her glistening white teeth, shining against her olive skin and dark hair, and swung to face the rest of the audience, her South American style dress billowing behind her. "Any more questions?"

A camera flashed.

"Delete that photo!"

As she entered the airport lounge the following day for her international "save the turtles" tour, an acne ridden angsty teenager threw newspapers marked "Turtle Warrior Causes A Stir at Taronga Zoo" onto the lawns of Inner-Western Sydney. 

11th of February, 9:07 am

Eyeing off the tall buxom Scandinavian at the airport bar, Matthew Best quietly and confidently swept his long, auburn fringe across his face, exercised his goofy smile and shuffled over to the girl.

"Hey" he said.

"Hulloo!" she replied enthusiastically. 

9:15 am

The second button of his blue, checkered faux-flannel shirt ricocheted wildly off two walls of the toilet cubicle. She threw the shirt open violently, exposing his bare chest as he attempted to pull her white singlet over her head with little initial success. The cubicle appeared to be designed specifically to avoid such an act, having an uncomfortably low stall door and claustrophobia inducing layout. Nonetheless, they passionately knocked the wall of the next cubicle. Sitting awkwardly with his back to the water tank, Matt's current lover grasped him by the hair on the back of his head. His shoulder blade repeatedly caused a loud clunk as it rocked into the porcelain behind him.

She was beautiful, with large blue eyes and golden blonde hair in a neat plait. As her hand slammed into the wall, his grabbed for the pipe connecting the toilet to the water mains, the other wrapped tightly around her waist. He tried to gasp but could not, she tried to stay silent, but also could not. 

The process of washing one's hands was made slightly more awkward than usual given the frustrated sounds of one reaching for a feeling just out of reach, coming from the stall closest to the exit. 

He kissed her neck and she responded by forcing forwards, causing his head to chip the basin lid. 

Then, as he shuddered, slipping away to another place, his hand, white from the pressure, crushed the PVC pipe connecting to the wall. A surge of disinfected blue water followed, masking the sound of the passionate tourist's own passage to the same mysterious place as Matt.  

"Thank you," she said melodically, as she washed her hands in the sink. "One day you should visit me in Sweden."

Beaming wildly he accepted the fake email address she had scrawled on the back of a duty free receipt in her pocket and after writing a 7 digit phone number on her arm he progressed to button his shirt back up as best he could. With a strange disjointed jerk motion he flicked his now sweat glistening hair back into place and strutted proudly from the room. 

11th of February, 9:16 am

In the airport bar, Captain Phillips ran his age wearied finger around the rim of his glass of Scotch and gazed upon his plane through the plate glass viewing window. The sunlight was reflected almost menacingly from the thick foreboding tar of the tarmac. 

He sighed loudly, loud enough to attract the attention of the overweight couple at the table beside him; they glanced disapprovingly at his scotch before returning to their decadent ricotta cheese cakes, lathered in syrup and glacé cherries. 

Taking a swig he felt an ice cube collide with his gold filling and then the sharp twang of the contact travelling up his nerve. For Phillips, flying had become a metaphor. Leaping from place to place, unable to settle or slacken, he longed for the feel of Earth beneath his feet just as he had once longed for the wind within his hair. He'd seen the rolling hills of Austria, stared into the Grand Canyon, kissed the Blarney stone; yet with every wonder he beheld, he felt more deeply, the absence of a wonder far more intimate, more sensual.

And there she was. Sitting only a table away, silhouetted by the primeval oozing tarmac, like a fallen angel, a beautiful red head, leafing through a worn copy of "Persuasion".

"I love Jane Austen," he stated casually. He did not love Jane Austen.

"Oh really?" replied the woman, slipping her bookmark into the folds. "I love a man who appreciates his romantics."

"Only the best literature there is."

Pushing back her chair she slid over to his table, and sat directly in front of him, battering her eyelids slightly as she did so. 

"Where are you headed?" he asked, now running his finger around his glass for different reasons. 

"Heathrow," she stated smiling.

"I might be flying you then," barely concealing excitement in his voice. 

"Is that so? Are you flying Qantas?"

"I am indeed"

"Wonderful!" She leaned in closer, and looked him in his eyes as if to say "maybe".

"So is this your first time to London?" he asked.

"It's my first time on a plane!" she replied giddily. It was not her first time on a plane, in fact, the third year of her recently finished psychology degree had been completed at Oxford university.

"What class are you flying?" he asked.

"Economy," her voice betraying a slight sense of embarrassment.

"Would you like to fly business?"

Once he had left, giving her instructions to pass to the cabin crew, Aleks Geba uncomfortably readjusted her blouse and returned to her book.

"I am just too good at this shit."

Her coffee tasted like soil but she was too busy simpering to notice.

12th of February, 10: 25, Geneva, Switzerland

A small glass tank held a white rat with eyes more red than the fires of hell. Above that tank, a blond, well groomed man in a starch white coat, fiddled with dials on a large metallic contraption emitting a low hum. A green light flickered on a switch board metres away while A-ha played faintly from the iTunes, minimised on the desktop computer by the door. 

The man left the room, leaving the machine humming ominously, like a flock of hummingbirds, using their combined strength to wildly wield a chainsaw. 

When he returned he was clad in a white radiation suit, complete with perspex visor, cutting his face off from the peak of his high cheek bones down. 

Synchronised perfectly to the beat of the song, and on minimum volume so as not to alarm him whilst working with the sensitive equipment, a warning signal beeped on his computer screen. 

Warning: Equipment is Experiencing Overheating

Allow sufficient time for cooling before 

proceeding.