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onlyforthedreamI smell motor oil, gunsmoke, salt and metal. The sounds of the motorcycle engine, the plane, the choppy, freezing waters of the English Channel assault my ears. It’s happening again. It’s happening again, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
I have always endeavored to remember the ways in which I’m fortunate, always tried not to take anything for granted. I was born to Irish immigrants. We were poor, not that I understood that until I was older. My dad died when I was young, my mother died when I was thirteen, and I was ill, my whole life. Sickly. Things were never easy, but that just meant everything mattered more, that there was more to be thankful for. All that said, I have never felt so damned as I do in this moment.
“No,” I murmur, grip holding tight on the throttle, “no, there has to be another way. There has to- Bucky!” I shout, looking at him over my shoulder.
“Bucky, listen! Make the jump, but forget the bomb. Grab my hand once you’re steady!”
I have always endeavored to remember the ways in which I’m fortunate, always tried not to take anything for granted. I was born to Irish immigrants. We were poor, not that I understood that until I was older. My dad died when I was young, my mother died when I was thirteen, and I was ill, my whole life. Sickly. Things were never easy, but that just meant everything mattered more, that there was more to be thankful for. All that said, I have never felt so damned as I do in this moment.
“No,” I murmur, grip holding tight on the throttle, “no, there has to be another way. There has to- Bucky!” I shout, looking at him over my shoulder.
“Bucky, listen! Make the jump, but forget the bomb. Grab my hand once you’re steady!”
no subject
Date: 2011-11-03 11:23 pm (UTC)“You really need to ask?”
no subject
Date: 2011-11-03 11:25 pm (UTC)“Go!” I shout over the drone of the engine and the rush of the wind, not diving from the wing until the tiniest fraction of a second after Bucky does. I can’t, until that moment, until I am one hundred percent sure that I’m not leaving him behind.
Not again. Never again.
The fall to the water is exhilarating the way recklessly stupid things usually are. I think in the distance I can hear the angry, panicked shouts of a madman and his soldiers, and the burst of metal and mortar and air as the plane explodes. The water is like a wall of ice rushing up to meet me, but it doesn’t hit nearly as hard as I remember. It’s murky, but I can make out Bucky a few yards away and can’t stop myself from smiling, cold be damned, as I kick toward the light and break the surface of the water.