Airplanes

Anonymous

He trudged through the ankle-deep snow, his hands in his pockets and his eyes on his shoes. Fallen snow stuck in his wavy hair and his eyelashes. He was was walking away from the worst day of his life. He looked back on these past few days...

He had first seen her walking down this very block block months ago, her long dark hair flecked with drops of rain. He had been starstruck when he saw her, and ran through the deluge or rain, trying to catch up with her. She turned a corner. He followed. When he caught up to her, he was breathless. She smiled at him as he gasped for air. Then she turned into the coffee shop. He sat at the booth while she was working behind the counter. He couldn't stop looking at her. After a while, he managed to walk up to the counter and ask her name.
Soon, after about three weeks of watching her work, he asked her out.

The next few months were bliss. They hung out at the coffee shop. He bought her flowers, and were almost inseparable. But it was not to last. She had gone on a trip. He stayed home and didn't go anywhere while she was away, pacing. He texted her all the time, sending her little messages to stay in touch. When she was getting on to the plane to come home, she told him she couldn't text him while she was on the plane. He paced even more because he didn't even have her texts to keep him occupied.

He had texted her when she was supposed to get off the plane. No reply. He tried not to panic, and turned on the tv to get his mind off it. On the channel he normally watched there was a huge news story instead of the normal programming: PLANE WRECK SLAUGHTERS THOUSANDS. His heart started to beat faster with panic. The reporter had said that the plane was coming back from where she had gone on her trip, and that no one had survived. She had been on that plane. He was in shock. But somewhere in the back of his brain told him that it couldn't be true. He ran through the snowstorm outside towards the airport, forgetting everything, just trying to see her, to see if she was really...

He arrived at the airport. A multitude of people were there. Most of them were asking the same question as he was, "Is it true?" "Did any survive?" "Where are they?" But they were all gone, all wiped out at the same time, no survivors. This is where we are now, walking through the snow, him trying to forget, missing her so much, but knowing that she will never reply to his texts, and that she was never coming back to him.