Right engine failure. Warning sirens screaming at him. In a heartbeat, his level dive transforms into a sickening death spiral. Fire in the fuel tank. The planet below corkscrews in his limited vision through the cockpit. He feels his consciousness being squashed by the inertia. Darkness hems the edge of his vision.
His mouth is calmly issuing final procedures. His hands do what they can with the stick, while the computer does its best to assist in a losing battle with gravity. But his mind is detached from this moment, and is far away, at the house with his mum and his sister and her two kids, and that winter they spent when they’d all lost something, and only had each other.
He is smiling, when the ground races up to meet him.
Paddy Dobson
17th November 2022