- Cassiopia Cassell awoke from a deep, wonderful sleep. In her dream, it was autumn, and the breeze had become almost too cool for a picnic. The leaves on the trees in the valley below blossomed with color. She stood on a green hillside, looking up at the weeping willow atop it. A cloaked figure waited there, a man dressed in the simple brown cloak of a monk, the hood shielding his face. Light seemed to radiate from him. Cassiopia climbed the hill to greet him. Clearly, he was a source of wisdom. He would expect a question. It would need to be profound to warrant his consideration. She stopped and bowed her head in respect. “Can you tell me, what is the true nature of the universe?” she asked. “Tell me first about love,” he replied. “I’m sorry. I don’t know about love,” she answered. Below the shadow of the hood, she glimpsed his smile. “Y ou will,” he said. “Y ou will.” A sudden gust of cold wind made her turn away. W hen she turned back, he was gone. She searched the landscape and the chill returned. She hugged herself and realized one shoulder hurt. The sound of howling wind broke into her dream. Her eyelids fluttered open, but her eyes refused to focus. There was a sore spot on the left side of her forehead. She touched it and found a bump. Struggling to awaken, the world became a white blur. Her eyelids felt heavy, and uncooperative. She forced them to open fully and tried to make sense of the snow-covered cliff in front of her. A twisted sculpture of metal and wire drew a frame around her vision. Her mind began to catch up. The twisted metal was the fuselage of an aircraft. She was still strapped in her seat. Snow and a bundle of wire lay in her lap. Other drifts of snow filled the isle beside her. An icy wind cut at her face. Memory of the crash began to force itself upon her. It began with smoke in the cabin. The right engine failed. The pilot changed course, because of something about drift-down. A slow descent began into clouds, followed by a massive impact beneath the airplane. The right wing struck something. They spun and crashed and slid, and crashed again. W ide-eyed Cassiopia looked for her companion, Scott Markman. He was still in his seat in the isle next to her, bent over and unconscious, his head covered with a layer of snow and frost. W hat remained of the aircraft’s front dividing wall and instrument panel was in his lap and against his chest. She thought to scream but looked around and found no one to hear. Jerking sideways, she reached for Scott, but her seatbelt restrained her. She wrestled to unhook it, and stiffly made her way to him, brushing the snow away, and gently lifting his chin. There was a bad cut and bruise on his forehead, but it was not bleeding. There was a pulse in the carotid artery. He was encased in twisted instrument panel and wreckage. She pushed forward on a section of it to no avail. In shock, she looked again for help. There was nothing but wreckage and white wilderness. The front of the aircraft was completely gone. She was standing in an open fuselage under assault by the elements. Her fingers were numb, her breath creating mist. At the front, the isle was blocked by more broken instrument panel and twisted metal. Her cell phone. It had been in the briefcase with her laptop. Scrambling back to her seat, there was no sign of it.She got down on the floor and looked underneath. There was a package of energy bars that had been in the briefcase. Papers from the case were strewn everywhere. She pushed herself up and climbed around the cabin searching frantically. It was no use. Those things were gone. She looked outside at the threatening weather. Maybe out there somewhere. She clambered clumsily over the seats and ducked beneath hanging wire bundles to get out. It was snowing. The black rock of a jagged cliff rose up in front of the wreckage. On the right, a snow-covered hill disappeared upward into clouds. On the left, twenty feet away, the ledge dropped off sharply. She leaned into the wind, pushed her way around the wreckage and staggered along the hillside. The right wing was completely gone. Behind the tail of the aircraft, a trail of snow-covered jagged metal marked the path they had taken down the side of the mountain. Aircraft parts and trash were strewn everywhere. There was no sign of the cockpit or the pilot. Cassiopia wrapped her arms tightly around her in the howling wind. W here was the baggage? It had been stored in the rear. She made her way through the waist-deep snow to the baggage door near the tail. The vertical section of tail was sheared off, the metal skin of the back end badly wrinkled. She found the baggage door but it was jammed tight. Her fingers were too cold to try to force the frozen latch. She pushed back through the snow, climbed back in next to Markman, sat facing him in the isle seat, and began to cry. Markman groaned and moved his head slightly. Cassiopia sat up. “Scott?”Nothing.
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