Crash Landing

The plane was going down. My wife, Sarah, a flight attendant with emergency training, chose to protect her old flame, Liam, helping him escape, while tossing me a parachute.

"You're a liar, Ben," she spat, her face twisted with disgust as I reached for her, "You deserve to die! Don't think I don't know you used to be a skydiving instructor!"

A wave of bitterness washed over me. She remembered I was a skydiver, but she forgot that years ago I'd shattered both my arms saving her from a rock climbing accident – injuries that ended my skydiving career.

I'm Gone

My soul drifted, aimlessly, until I was next to Sarah. She was struggling to carry Liam, rushing him towards the ER. Her usually composed face was a mask of panic, sweat beading on her forehead.

If she wasn’t my wife, I’d probably be touched by such a display of selfless devotion, like everyone else. I had never seen Sarah look so frantic. She was usually so cool and collected.

The doctor's announcement that Liam only had a minor sprain caused Sarah’s body to visibly relax. She held Liam's hand tightly, their eyes locked in a gaze of intense affection.

My soul stood beside them, a silent observer. My chest throbbed with a dull, deep ache.

Liam had a sprain. Me? My corpse was probably still mangled, lying on the remote mountainside. I could almost feel the bone-crushing pain, the despair and fear as I plunged from the sky. But here, with Sarah and Liam’s melodrama, it all seemed irrelevant.

"Shouldn't you be checking on Ben?" Liam said softly, his eyes lowered, with a guilt-stricken look. He was playing it perfectly, he always did. "Back on the plane…"

Ben was me. My legal name is Benjamin, or Ben for short. And Liam? He was the one who could never be fully forgotten in Sarah’s mind.

Sarah's face was smeared with dirt and blood, her uniform torn. Sarah was obsessed with her appearance. She never even took the trash out without makeup on, so to see her so disheveled showed just how much Liam meant to her.

My name brought a flicker of anticipation. Maybe, just maybe, she'd remember the way I’d begged for her help during the crash. But all I could recall was the cold indifference in her eyes.

"Ben, you're so selfish," she'd said, her voice sharp. "Liam doesn't know what to do. He'd die without me! You're a skydiver – you won't die, right? I can't let Liam die!"

Then she ran to Liam, leaving me there, a free-fall victim.

And I did die.

My eyes tracked Sarah's retreating figure, the chaos around me – the shouts, the cries for help, all fading into a silent tableau.

Yes, I was a skydiver. But did Sarah forget that three years ago, when she decided to climb, the safety rope snapped, and I saved her, pulling her back from the brink?

Sarah had walked away unscathed, but I had pulverized both my arms. Doctors were amazed, even saying we’d both be dead if I didn’t have such sheer will.

And what had Sarah done? She rushed off to see Liam, receiving his phone call just minutes later.

Bef...