Being Her; a Short-story

“BA198 to Control Tower

Mayday, Mayday

 Repeat BA198 to Control Tower over..I remember the same sound repeatedly then we felt something as if we were in a roller-coaster and it was going down, way down and everything went blank after that,” said the woman sitting in the ottoman looking outside through the window by her side quite reluctant to look at the men in front of her.

“What happened before that? Do you remember anyone’s face or name, the people who were with you, the other passengers…try, try to remember,” one of them said the words politely, trying not to intimidate the lady who seemed in a fragile state.

(The view outside is quite gloomy, looked quite lifeless but a fair amount of clear blue sky is seen; a few skyscrapers here and there situated near that building blocked half the view. The lady has a pretty face and probably in her late 30’s but her eyes look frightened as if they’re terrified of looking at something dreadful; it makes her look older. It is clear that she survived some kind of mental or physical trauma and she is not quite over it.

The room is semi-big with several medical amenities inside; in front of the door is a bed surrounded by some medical equipment, beside the bed on the left side there’s a bed-side table; on the table there’s a cheap vase without any flowers in it. On the right side there’s a coffee table in front of an old ottoman; on the coffee-table lies a few documents, at the right side of the ottoman is a window which poured all the sunlight in the room. On the left-side wall hanged a small LCD screen television and some kind of news-channel is on but it’s on mute.)

One of the men with a Doctor’s coat on said “Dr. Stones says you’re still quite stressed out about the crash but you need to tell us about it, the officers here are still waiting on you for a statement. It’s been almost 3 weeks and your memory should be back by now, you’re doing very well. Now I understand it’s difficult…”

“You don’t understand a thing, you were not there, I was, I lost my baby and my husband in that crash, my family is gone, no one, there’s no one to call my own,” the lady said with furious rage in her eyes, almost sobbing but soon overcoming the state “You want to know what happened that day? Fine, I will tell you but I want something in return. Can you promise to give it to me?”

“I certainly will try” the doctor answered rapidly and his eyes shined with hope.

“Bring me back my family” the lady smiled grimly.

“I’m sorry for your loss; I’m incapable to fulfill your wish but you have to open up about the crash,” there’s remorse felt in his voice.

“You know I remember her”

“Her? Who?”

“She wanted to help them, the hijackers”

“Mrs. Spencer, are you saying that the flight was being hijacked?”

“Yes, they planted a bomb…”

“Perhaps you can hold that thought for me, I won’t be long.”

The men left the room in a rush and came back with a few others, who looked like policemen judged by their uniform. One of them asked, “So what do you remember? What happened in that Plane?” The gentlemen waited eagerly looking at her for a reply.

(Mrs. Spencer sinks in the ottoman a bit closing her eyes as if seeing a dream; she seems uncomfortable to speak about it but continues anyway…)

“I was by the window seat holding Ben in my arms, he was asleep. Kevin was seating right next to me reading something. Everything was all right in the beginning. We were all in a rush to get to Bristol. Kevin had just been transferred and they offered him a big post with even a bigger salary and a house down by the lake. Oh! It looked all so wonderful in the pictures and we couldn’t wait to get there. Kevin never liked London much, “crowded and claustrophobic,” he always said. The captain announced that we’d reach Bristol without any delay. I first saw her when that old lady asked Kevin to help her with the bags, she was in the opposite row, window seat same as mine. She was reading something, a magazine I don’t clearly remember. Before her was sitting those men…”

Before she could finish her sentence one of the police officers rushed her “Can you tell us how she looked like?”

“Brown-skinned, her name was Lata.”

“Now hold on there, my dear lady.” The officer took out a file among the pile of documents that he carried with him and searched something in there, after a while he seemed disappointed.

“Are you sure about that? Her name?”

“Well that’s what he called her.”

“Who?”

“One of the hijackers, Imran, yes that was his name. I just noticed her shoes at first glance; she was wearing a pair of white ballerinas. Those were beautiful, you know I used to own a pair just like that but I lost them somehow about a year ago. After helping the old lady Kevin went back to his reading but I kept looking at her, there was something about her”

“You were talking about some men, sitting before her, perhaps the hijackers?” Dr. Stones reminded her.

“Oh! Yes indeed, them, after a while one of them went to the washroom and came back after a long time; he created quite a chaos for keeping the washroom engaged for that long. After coming back to his seat, he took something out from his bag…”

“What was it? A gun?” the policeman asked failing to control his curiosity.

“Let her tell the tale Officer” Dr. Stones warned him.

“Thank you Doctor. No, He took out a play-stick, you know like a joystick, the ones boys play video games with and suddenly stood up. I was watching him, he didn’t notice me then. The stewardess asked him to sit down but he said it was a detonator, if he had pressed the button, the bomb would go off and we would all die…”

The curiosity rose as she unfolded the story, often the officers looked at each other with awe and sometimes raised their eyebrows in suspicion; the Doctors paid full attention to Mrs. Spencer’s body language and listened carefully.

She continued “3 other young men from the same row followed his lead and they all had knives and they threaten everyone with them. They were speaking in a different language so I didn’t understand what they were talking about but I heard the name Imran, someone was calling him. Well he’s the one who went in the cockpit. We were all very scared, Ben woke up and started crying loudly so one of them came to us and took him from my arms…” Mrs. Spencer stopped here, tears rolling down her cheeks, she sobbed frequently “That’s the last time I held him, they took away my baby, Kevin tried to stop them but he hit him; it made Kevin unconscious. The monster took my baby away and hit my husband, I wanted to kill him, I wanted to rip his head apart but she stopped me. She started talking to them; there was something about a Seminar. We didn’t understand their conversation but they talked to her about something, they all seemed very angry then that Imran guy took her to the cockpit and that’s when I heard her name, he called her  Lata, she asked the captain to open the cockpit, as soon as someone opened the door he stabbed him with his knife and went inside. Everyone was so scared, no one protested. The guy with the joystick kept on murmuring something and soon the shrikes and all the screams made my head so dizzy, my Ben was with them, I took one last chance to save my baby, I went near the cockpit before I could take Ben in my hands, the plane started going downwards and I could not keep my balance, I fell down and hit my head on something and the last thing I heard was “BA198 to Control Tower, Mayday, Mayday, repeat BA198 to Control Tower over,” she stopped talking.

“Is that it? Do you remember anything else?”

She shook her head.

“Well Mrs. Spencer, you need rest, get some rest, I’ll be back” Dr. Stones left the room with others.

They all started discussing about the matter in Dr. Stones’ office.

“Do you think that she is telling the truth Doctor?” asked the first officer.

“I can’t say, well she could be making this up. Sometimes it happens, after an accident like the one she faced; people tend to make up stories in order to satisfy the heart. It’s hard for them to accept the truth so they prefer a different story.”

“Well that woman is bloody lying, there’s no one named Lata or Imran in the passengers’ list. There’s this Indian woman though named Sonali Kumar. Although there were four Muslims but none of them was named Imran.”

“Why would she make up a story like that? Rather odd, don’t you think?” Another officer asked raising his left eyebrow.

“Maybe she is a racist, she cannot take the pain of losing her husband and baby so she tries to put the blame on the odd passengers out of pure hatred, or maybe she is just delusional.”

“Or maybe they lied about their names, she is the sole survivor of the crash, so we kind of have to believe in what she says; we have no other choice, she’s our only statement unless the Doctor here tells us that she is in no state to make a statement, she’s delusional,” everyone looked at Dr. Stones.

“Perhaps I can say she’s delusional”

“Very well then that settles it, we shall say that the woman has no recollection of the crash whatsoever so she cannot make a statement, now we should concentrate on searching the river for more bodies although there’s a very little hope that it’ll match her story. It’s quite miraculous that she is the only survivor, she is bloody lucky.”

“What’s the luck in surviving alone, Officer? We shall never know what went wrong in BA198 on 24^th October 2012, all we know that there was a crash and everyone died but her,” Dr. Stones sounded empathetic.

After the discussion Dr. Stones went to see Mrs. Spencer who was standing by the window, looking quite cheerful. She said “He visited me, Doctor, Kevin, he was here yesterday night and we talked for hours”

“Your husband is dead, Mrs. Spencer”

“Don’t you dare to say that! You don’t know anything. He’s alive and asked me to come with him. Shall I go Doctor? Shall I go with him?”

Dr. Stones said nothing in return knowing it’s pointless to argue with a woman in her state.

Mrs. Spencer started to croon an unknown song. She was in bliss.

 

The next morning police vans secured the Hospital area. Dr. Stones had just come for his session with Mrs. Spencer and couldn’t find her in her room; he guessed perhaps they shifted her to another one so he asked her Doctor-in-charge about what happened and he answered “I’m sorry Dr. Stones perhaps you haven’t got the news yet, Mrs. Spencer committed suicide last night by jumping down from the window in her room.”

By Anamika Dutta©