Excerpt: Curbside Prophet

Richard barely made it through security in time to board the plane. His seat was near the front of the craft and he had to squeeze past an elderly couple to get to the window seat. He tucked his carryon bag under the seat in front of him after grabbing a sudoku book from the outside pocket.

After takeoff, the captain came on and announced their flying altitude, weather conditions in Austin, and approximate arrival time. Halfway through a joke about keeping seatbelts fastened tightly around one’s lips, rather than hips, the sound cut off and Richard got the horrible dropping feeling in his stomach like he was on a roller coaster.

Looking up from his book, he saw the air masks drop all around him, struggled to grab at one, the dropping feeling continuing to get worse. He looked to see what the other passengers were doing, when he noticed he was alone on the plane, which seemed to be falling out of the air at a very rapid pace. He was back in the negative world.

Richard ripped himself out of his seat, yelling frantically and grabbing onto chairs to steady himself. There were no stewards for him to call out for; he was alone in the cabin. His book fell from his lap to the floor and he heard it rip as he stepped on it. Oxygen masks dangling around him, he pushed past them and ran up the aisle to the cockpit. The door was unhinged and no one sat at the controls for the plane. He rushed in, grabbed at the controls, but the plane continued to fall. He hit all the buttons on the panel and pulled futilely at the handles. The sight from the cockpit was nauseating, the plane was still very high in the air, but the ground was getting closer every time he looked up.

He was not sure what made him do it, but he pushed his way back to the main cabin. That was when he saw something he was not expecting. There was someone crouched in the back area for the stewards. Richard could not tell if it was a man or a woman; they were wearing shapeless clothes and were bending over too far for Richard to see anything but their back.

“Hey!” He yelled, struggling back to the person, using the seats as leverage. “Hey!”

He got halfway to them and stopped in his tracks as the person stood up and turned slowly to him. It was the homeless man from outside the Frost Bank Tower, the same man he had seen on his last visit to this world.

“Who are you?” He screamed over the thundering wind outside the plane.

The man smiled cruelly.

“Who are you?” Richard repeated, knowing the plane would crash any second. The man just stared at him, then started to laugh a low, menacing laughter as he saw trees through the plane’s windows and never really registered the shock of the crash.