Read Online Permanence by Vincent Zandri - Free Book Online Page A

am carrying doctor’s baby. Also, I cannot forget what I have learned so far about crash-landing—the participant is required to be wide awake.
    Doctor hands me the pills. He insists there will be no crash landings or no crashes for that matter. All the same, it is better if I go to sleep.
    Somehow, I am not reassured.
    I pop the tiny pill into my mouth and swallow with a small sip of scotch. Within minutes I am a million miles away.
    Mother carries me to the top of the staircase. There is so much heat, so much smoke, I can hardly see her through the haze. But I can feel her arms wrapped around me. There is no sound other than mother’s voice: “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay, baby.” Only, I’m not okay. Not anymore. I’m ten years old and I can see the bright orange light of the fire; I can feel the heat. My mother’s voice is drowned in the increasing power of the fire moving its way up from the floor beneath us. The fire suddenly forms a wall of sound; the heat and the acrid smoke burns my eyes. Mother stands at the top of the stairs. I am cradled in her arms, like a newborn. “It’s okay,” my mother lies. I cuddle my face into her nightgown. There is nowhere to go. There is too much fire, too much smoke. We’re trapped inside our own home. Where is my father?
    When I wake, my head feels about to explode. My head feels as though it could split in two. But my head is cuddled in doctor’s lap. I lift it, slightly. I am startled. I smell the smoky aroma of doctor. I feel the slight irritation of his woolen suit against my face. I am confused. For the moment, I could be inside my apartment or inside doctor’s office. I swallow. My ears pop and I can hear the strained, droning noise of the remaining jet engines.
    Then I remember everything.
    “We’re nearly home,” doctor tells me, rubbing away the moisture that has formed on my brow. “We are landing safely.” He rubs my hair back flat. “You were having some kind of bad dream,” he says. “I know the signs.”
    I lift myself away from doctor’s lap. I sit back into my seat and rub my eyes, my face. I breathe a deep breath, feel my ears clear completely. Other than the mechanical noise of the engines, this jet plane has become eerily silent.
    “You want to talk about it?” asks doctor. “About landing? About your dream?”
    But my head is filled with fog and I am clean out of answers.
    Outside this porthole window, nothing but the silent, blackened remains of the dead jet engine, scattered clouds against a metallic blue background.
    “I see,” says doctor, turning away from me. I can tell he does not want to press the issue of dreams.
    Landing
    We hear the captain’s voice coming to us from over the loudspeakers of this jet plane like God from the heavens. He informs us that we are about to land at the Leonardo Da Vinci-Fiumicino International Airport in Rome, Italy. From there, doctor whispers, we will travel to beautiful, romantic Venice. But I pray we will not be getting on another plane. I pray we will not be risking our lives any more than we already have.
    Listen: I want to take a car to Venice; I want to take a boat or a train; I want to go Greyhound.
    Now I look outside the porthole window. The solid ground is visible below me. There is the blackened, dead engine. The captain requests that we follow the “Emergency Landing Procedures” that should have been demonstrated earlier by the flight attendants, although he is quite sure we will have little use for them. “This is not overreaction,” he presses. “This is routine procedure during a situation of this nature.”
    I am not reassured because this is not a natural situation.
    Doctor takes my hand into his and squeezes it. He forces an unusual smile from behind his beard. “Just relax,” he says, “and everything will be just fine.” I believe him, whether I want to or not. I have no choice but to believe doctor. I need him.
    The passengers of economy class emit small shrieks as