I don't really like being creative, so this isn't particularly inspired, but one or two of you might fight through your ADD and find it interesting, so here goes:
Simon Winchell-Manning March 6, 2006
Creative Writing Block 4
Forgiveness
Karma. It was a fickle concept. Hank braced his head against the seat back in front of him as instructed and tried to organize his thoughts. Hank was deep inside his mind, and barely aware of the shouts and sobs of the other passengers, or the flashing emergency lights.
"Y'all be sure to play fair out there" hollered Mama from the porch, "and Hank, let your brother get a hit or two this time." But Hank didn't listen. He never listened any other time either. When Johnny came up to bat, Hank scared the bejeezus out of the kid with a fastball inches from his head, and then proceeded to throw three of his nastiest sliders right over the plate. Hank didn't care that he was five years older than his brother, and he wouldn't even regret it a few years later when Johnny was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life by the polio.
Hank had always lived with his needs as a top priority. He needed to win, needed it bad. He'd made it through high school as a top pitcher, but when he had to leave the small Okie town where he'd been raised, he learned he didn't have what it took for the big leagues. Hank hadn't been man enough to admit it of course, and he'd resorted to cheating and just plain meanness. Hank set a record for most hit batters in a year, and intimidation was just about the most effective pitch he had. Hank was banned from baseball after three years, for keeping shoe polish and sandpaper in his glove. Not even his hometown fans cared, and Hank didn't get a single offer of lodging or employment.
Not long after that Hank signed on with a logging crew in Oregon, and opened a new chapter in his life. Hank kept his distance from the other men, but he worked like he had something to prove. Before long he had his own logging outfit, and he was known as the toughest boss in the west. Hank was famous for firing one of his best workers because the man missed one day to see his first child born. But in those days there were plenty of men dying for a chance to make their fortune in the timber camps, and while Hank's brutality meant that none of his workers returned for a second season, it also made him a good pile of money. Soon Hank owned his own sawmill and lumber depot, and worked from a cool air conditioned office in town.
Hank could feel the turbulence tossing the plane to and fro, and smell the noxious odor of vomit that filled the cabin, but all he could think of was his wife and daughter, and the life that he'd missed. Hank and Stella had met at a town social soon after Hank had begun his business venture in town. Stella had grown up on the outskirts of town in a rough and tumble homestead with dirt floors, a tin roof and waxed paper windows, and she was enthralled to be dancing with one of the wealthiest men in the county. Less than three weeks later they were married, and life was good. Hank finally cared for someone, and was excited about the expected baby. Stella liked Hank well enough, and she finally had the hardwood floors, glass windows and fine china she had always dreamed of.
But Hank had a mean streak in him since he was born, and less than a month after their honeymoon, Hank and Stella were screaming so loud every night that the neighbors would call the cops. Hank started hitting the bottle at work, and after coming home drunk for two weeks, Stella left. Their baby had been due in less than a month.
That baby was why Hank had gotten on this godforsaken plane. Once Hank had started drinking, he didn't stop for twenty five years. By that point he had managed to run his business into the ground, and squander all his money. At age 62, Hank didn't have a job or a penny to his name. Thirty years ago Hank had lived in the largest mansion in town, and had a butler, two gardeners, and a cook. Now, Hank lived in a semi-permanent homeless shelter, and had to spend three hours a day making the ugliest bird-boxes he had ever seen. Most nights he had to do dishes, and on Thursdays he helped make the meal.
Hank had resigned himself to this life, and the sense of order and security it gave him. At 62 years old, he would be allowed to continue living in the shelter for the rest of his life, and he now had a small room all to his own. All that changed when Hank got a letter from the one person he had never stopped thinking about. Charlene had managed to track her father down through a registry of welfare recipients, and the invitation to Stella's funeral she sent was the first contact with him in her life. When Hank had received he had cried. He cried not for the death of Stella, (who's death was described as a blessing; an end to the pain the cancer had brought upon her) but because this contact with his daughter reminded him of how far he had fallen, and how much of his life he had wasted.
Hank had never been a man much given to emotions, but his time on the streets and in the shelter had changed him, and his heart was now filled with regrets. Charlene had written that she had a good job and would fly him out to Sacramento for the funeral if he wanted. This was a chance for Hank to undue some of the harm he had caused, and to meet his only child, and he leapt at it. Hank had gotten on the plane with a smile and a light heart, figuring that the fates had given him this chance since he had turned his life around.
But Hank hadn't figured on karma, and now he realized that he hadn't done much to repay all the cruelties he had done. Hank could feel the plane hurtling down, towards the ocean, and knew there were only seconds left before the impact. Hank's mind was racing faster than the plane, not with thoughts of survival, but desperately striving to find a way to show his daughter he had changed.
The 747 bounced three times after it hit the ocean. With the second impact, the plane split just behind the wings, and with the third impact, the engines and entire front of the plane exploded. All that was left now was the tail of the plane, row 53 and onwards. The tail floated for almost two minutes, enough time for the uninjured passengers to clamber onto the two rafts.
Hank was hurt badly, he couldn't move his legs. But he was alert and aware, and could see the man next to him moving. As the man tried to drag Hank from his seat, towards the raft, Hank shook his head, and silently handed the man his 10 ounce bottle of airplane water, and a bag of crackers. The man made it to the raft, and a few moments later the tail began to sink. Hank could feel the cold briny water crawling up from his ankles to his head, but he made no attempt to unbuckle his seat belt. Hank sunk with the plane, his eyes fixed on the ever diminishing patch of sunlight, knowing that however small, he had given all that he could. He hoped that Charlene could understand, and would forgive him. And then the light was gone.
