Orphans

39

39 There is noise and chaos, metal crunching, twisting and bending. People are screaming somewhere in the darkness and why is everything so dark and smoky? I hear rain, no spraying, something, more screaming, and heat, intense heat on my face, my scalp sizzling, cooking, and the smoke is getting thicker, so dark, and there is a pinging, or clanging, both, my back is sore, heavy, hot, why is it so hot, and why so much smoke? The floor is moving below me and the ceiling above as well—where, what, why is it do dark, and why can’t I move, oh fuck, am I pinned under something? Where, what the fuck, who, and now I’m coughing, but every contraction is restricted, my eyes are tearing, fuck, more screaming, someone, many, barking orders, indistinguishable . Focus, look, see what, anything, nothing, okay, feel around. Nothing in front or above, nothing really to the sides, wait, what is this, a strap, like a seatbelt? Not pinned, leaning on something, buried, held down, oh shit, I’m still in bed, on the shuttle. Am I dreaming, no, yes, so conscious though. No, this is real, more crunching, the sick sound of metal twisting into itself—need to move. Now there is tilting, the shuttle is tilting underneath me, and I am sliding forward, the bed, me, all of it, metal on metal, scratching, grinding and sliding. I am struggling to grab the straps, pulling, picking and clawing at my own chest. The heat on my scalp is building, the sweat dripping onto my forehead, down my nose and onto my chin. I am fighting the momentum, and the sliding, and O R P H A N S 138 the straps are in my hand, even as I’m kicking my feet at the approaching wall, which I know is there despite the smoke and the darkness, and the fucking heat. I undo the straps across my chest, and I swing my legs off of the bed. I pick my way to the door, but it’s bent, jammed, unusable and impassable. I remember that there is an emergency hatch accessible under the bed, and covering my mouth and nose with my sleeve I climb under the bed and look for the latch that will allow me to escape my room and try to figure out what’s going on. The latch is where it’s supposed to be, but the cover to the hatch is so hot, burning. I move my sleeve from my mouth to my hand and I twist the latch until it gives, a slight spark jumping at my face. The shaft below the hatch is so tight and hot, and the smoke is everywhere as I start shimmying down the shaft, pushing, inching along, no give, no anything, just the chance to keep moving along, slowly, but with hope on my side. My legs are dangling, hanging, floating in some kind of space, free and waiting for the rest of me to catch up. Which it does as I slowly move, and try to get my bearings . The smoke is dissipating, the shouting muffled, but present, like white noise, like the ocean slapping against a shore. And now I am dangling, hanging by my hands, trying to see where it is I am dropping and how far, and then I’m just falling into the darkness, free and liberated, yet falling into the unknown. There is airlessness and soon there is not as I hit the bottom of the shuttle, and crumple into a ball, my legs, back and neck absorbing the shock of the landing, the pain reverberating across me like a sine wave, crushing oscillations that require me to lie down and remember B E N TA N Z E R 139 first how to breath, then think and ultimately recall what it means to move at all. As I lay here, the pain slowly receding into an ache and being absorbed by the floor below me, my other senses start to come back to life. The screaming is so loud now, as are other noises, sawing, hammering, peeling and grating, metal being crushed and pulled somewhere above me. There is light as well, a sliver of light bisecting me down the middle, splitting me into two inversely matching shadows. I start moving toward the light, first sliding, then crawling on a floor...