Kelly looks off into the distance, and then she looks directly into my eyes.
“Matt if you were selling me a new car or a new waterbed with all the latest accessories, I would probably buy it on the spot, no questions and no doubts.
“But I am not buying a car and I am not buying a waterbed, and I am not buying the load of rubbish you are trying sell me.
Somehow, this man that has been endowed with such insidious stealth and cunning, he knows that we have discovered his existence. Judging by those marks on your throat, I’d say that he doesn’t like being discovered. Maybe he’s shy. Maybe he likes his privacy. Maybe he is hiding some secret that is beyond belief, I really don’t care.” Kelly throws both hands up.
“When he sees that you are going to turn right around and continue with your investigation, I doubt very much that he will go into hiding. He didn’t have any qualms about strangling you before; he won’t have any qualms about finishing the job in the future,” she protests, with a fretting disposition.
“I know you’re upset about all of this, and you don’t want me to go to Maui. I know that when Lloyd finds out that I went to Maui, and he finds out the reason I went , he will probably fire me. I understand all of that; but also I am hoping that you will understand when I tell you, that I am still going to Maui.”
“Ok Matt,” with shrugged shoulders, she concedes to the inevitable.
“But I have to tell you. There is no, ‘probably being fired’. When Lloyd finds out that you went to Maui on your own assignment, he will surely fire you. And guess who will be there to take the heat?” She pinches her lips together and shakes her head, as she contemplates the forecast of her future.
We both sit there for a moment, looking out the window. The waiter comes by one more time to ask if we want anything more. We ignore his hint of vacating our table. Then, Kelly interrupts our interlude of hush. Still gazing out through the glass, she begins to speak from her heart.
“When does your plane leave for Maui?”
“My flight leaves at eight in the morning. I hate to leave before you, but it was the only flight I could get on such short notice.”
“Well that’s ok. I will only have to wait around a couple of hours till my flight leaves.”
“Matt.” she says calmly.
“What’s up?”
“What if you go to Maui and you find nothing? What if you go to Maui and lose your job for nothing. I would hate to see your career end like this, you know?”
Looking up at the ceiling, I scratch my chin with my thumb and try to look quite methodical. An amusing thought of nonsense prompts me to smile.
“I know what your problem is. You just don’t want to lose the best journalist you have ever worked with in your life. That’s it, isn’t it?” I ask her jokingly.
With an apocryphal grin still carved upon my face, I look up and witness Kelly’s eyes filling with tears.
“I will miss you, Matt. Come on, we better go.” She slides off her chair, stands up and quickly exits the restaurant. Felling like a stupid heel, I pay the check. Braking into a quick trot, I make an effort to intercept Kelly. It seems that I spend too much of my time as a heel. I think it would be refreshing to experience a new personality trait for a change.
§
TWENTY ONE
After going through metal detectors and luggage searches, I am one of the few randomly chosen passengers to be checked one more time. It never fails. Whenever I get on a plane, I am always treated to the attention of one more final check. I must possess a look of suspicion that I am not aware.
I asked for a window seat when I reserved my flight. I love to watch the world beneath me going by. For some reason it brings me peace. Finally I reach my seat, 22-A. I sit down and look out the tiny double paned port hole. 22-A is right over the wing. The wing will definitely block any views of the world beneath me going by. Oh well, there is not going to be much to see but ocean for five hours, anyway.
The morning is dreary and wet. The sky looks as if it is full of great hunks of gray gauze hanging from nothing. I guess on second thought, it will be five hours of staring at gray clouds instead of the blue ocean. Maybe I’ll just get some rest, and do some preparation for Maui.
An announcement broadcasts over the speaker of the plane’s cabin. “This is the captain. Welcome aboard flight #537, Seattle to the island of Maui in the Hawaiian Islands. Our flight today will take approximately five hours and twelve minutes. We will be flying this morning at an elevation of 34,000 feet, traveling at an approximate speed of 550 miles per hour.”
As he continues, I reach down and feel under the seat in front of me for the cardboard cylinder tubes, which contain the photo posters of the actual explosion of the Challenger shuttle. Touching the tubes with my fingers, I am satisfied of their presence. ‘Thank goodness I remembered to bring them aboard, instead of leaving it with my luggage in the cargo hold of the plane,’ I think to myself.
Taking off and climbing over Seattle, I look down at the city and think about Kelly, who will be heading back to Portland this morning. I feel an empty melancholy inside me because of leaving her with such a mountain of mixed feelings.
In truth, I have left her holding the bag. She will go back to The Herald and face Lloyd on her own; a grim prospect, at best. I know he will be furious and quite possibly demonic when he hears about my escapades. No doubt he will call me reckless and irresponsible. I can even see him telling Kelly ‘not only is he fired, but I will make it my goal in life to make sure that he doesn’t work as a journalist for any paper anywhere ever again.’
Yes, I can just about hear him telling Kelly that very thing. I am in hopes though that Lloyd will still possess a small sense of being a gentleman and that he will act accordingly. The problem is that I have little faith that there exists any such quality of chivalry in Lloyd. I kind of feel like a parent, that has just sent my child to the wicked landlord to pay the past due rent, instead of going himself.
Hopefully Kelly’s beauty, brains, and her ability to hold her own, will knock Lloyd down a few notches. He’ll be like a cantankerous wild bull that has been spurred by a stubborn cowgirl for the full eight-second count. I smile at the thought of it. Those cowboys that ride those rodeo bulls for the eight seconds don’t hold a candle to Kelly. She is a very determined lady. I have seen her when she gets determined to take a photograph for an important story. She would ride a bull for an hour, if that is what it would take to get her picture.
The thought of Kelly’s ability and skill to take care of herself makes me feel better. The aching feeling of abandoning her at a bad time eases a little. I hope she will forgive me. I hope I can show her good cause for her trust.
I spread the little munchkin airplane blanket on my lap. Actually, my mother used to wash and fold my father’s handkerchiefs that were bigger than this. I snuggle down in my seat and close my eyes, and begin to be hummed to sleep by the engine noise of the plane.
Just as I am about to arrive at the abyss of deep sleep, I remember the poster photos of the shuttle I brought with me. My eyes pop open as if affixed to springs. I probe beneath the seat in front of me for the large cardboard canister tubes, where the poster photos of the shuttle are stowed.
I open the top of one of the tubes and pull one of the giant photos out. A passenger jet is not a very suitable place to analyze a poster, but at least the seat next to me is empty. I unroll the photo, using the seats in front as an easel to prop it up.
I realize that I may have to examine several poster photos before I find what I am looking for. The photos are in sequence, so I continue to pull the photos from the inside of the roll and work my way to the outside. As I examine each giant photo, I see that the sequence of the photos travels forward in time. My hands begin to perspire, and the photos start to stick to my fingers. I experience a little spark of electric current within me, at the idea of finding out the real origin and cause of the explosion of the shuttle.
A smiling fligh
t attendant approaches and cheerfully offers me refreshment.
“Oh, it looks as if you’re busy right now, sir. I would be glad to come back a little later, if you wish.”
“No that’s all right. I’ll take some coffee please.” I quickly pull down the tray of the vacant seat next to me. The flight attendant is very attractive in appearance, which is surpassed only by her pleasant manner.
The coffee is very hot, so I set it down on the small tray to cool. I become involved in the photos once again. There are quite a few photos to go through. As I unfurl each photo, I concentrate on the area I believe to be the nucleus of my suspicions.
After about twenty posters, I begin to identify something curious. I analyze a giant photo of the shuttle frozen in time, and see what looks like a tiny streak of light, beginning to travel from below. Excited, I pull subsequent posters from the canister. Each photo seems to reveal this same betraying secret anomaly.
After examining the next five photos, the shooting streak has traveled up across the photo, now only inches from the shuttle. I reach down to the canister tube of photos and flip through to the seventh photo in sequence. I unfurl the photo and place it upon the back of the passenger’s seat in front of me. There it is; the moment of the fiery bright streak hitting the shuttle, and the beginning of an exposition. I slowly and solemnly drop back into my seat, like an old creaking drawbridge.
Looking out the window, I stare at a blinking red light at the end of the aircraft’s wing. I try to calmly consume what I have just discovered. Something, from somewhere, propelled through the air and struck the space shuttle Challenger, causing it to explode. These posters are like artifacts that have been buried in some ancient sarcophagus for decades. Now they have been resurrected back to life, informing me that the truth has never been told. The Challenger did not explode by cause of some technical or mechanical malfunction. These posters make certain the cause. Something hit the Space Shuttle Challenger that day, causing it to explode.
Now it comes, the question. Was this an accident of some kind or a deliberate premeditated strike? If it was deliberate or a mistake, from where did the explosive projectile come from?
So much time has passed since that fateful day. If this were an accident, if something from somewhere accidentally struck the Shuttle, wouldn’t NASA’s scientist have figured that out by now? Shouldn’t we have all known by now? Looking at these photos it seems evident that this explosion was caused by something hitting the shuttle, not by some mechanical malfunction inside the shuttle, causing it to explode.
I am sure that NASA has photos and videotape of the shuttle’s explosion, of a much higher quality than I have. Surely, they would know the truth about the explosion better than I do. If they know the truth, if they know the real cause of the explosion, why have they kept silent about it? Could it have been some kind of surface-to-air missile that was shot off by mistake? That may be something they would want to keep quiet.
I suppose it is conceivable, that one of the military computers malfunctioned and accidentally ordered a programmed automatic response, to a supposed threatening unidentified flying object. Whether deliberate or by mistake, some kind of bright beam or projectile caused this explosion. The question is; why was this information kept quiet? Of course, if a missile from the military brought it down, I can understand why they may not want that to be made public. But, what if some terrorist group or the military of another country, deliberately or accidentally shot down the shuttle; wouldn’t that be something that would be made public.
Even if it was deliberate or by mistake, someone would have blown the whistle by now, and blown it out of proportion without restraint. These things have a way of getting out.
Could there be another reason why NASA and others have kept this all a secret? The cogs inside my head grind, until my brain creates one of those, ‘plain as day’ ideas. Maybe the truth has been kept muffled all these years, because they are convinced a fiery projectile did cause the shuttle to explode, but they have no idea of the reason why or from where it came.
A highly technical body of knowledge like NASA would be very hesitant at admitting to their lack of understanding of an outcome they were put in charge of.
Digging up this tidbit of intelligence could prove to be a very dangerous discovery for me, I worry to myself. I wonder if there are others that have unwittingly stumbled into this old crypt of concealment; this authentic truth of the explosion of the shuttle Challenger? Yes, and I wonder what has been there unsolicited fate for possessing such a discovery. I am guessing that no one will ever know.
My intense mental focus is bluntly disrupted, as the cabin of the plane is jostled and jarred by air turbulence we are now navigating through. I look around the cabin. Some passengers are picking up personal items that have been tossed on the floor. Some are laughing nervously, in order to ease the alarm that the turbulence has set in motion.
Again, I gaze out the small porthole window of the cabin. The sun shines down upon the grey clouds below. I look out into the heavens outside. An apparition like reflection of my face appears in the glass of the window, its ghostly probing eyes staring back at me. I stare at myself, pondering on the things I have unearthed in the last few weeks of my life.
The thoughts, discoveries and revelations flood my mind until it drowns under the weight of it. In order to save my soundness of mind, I take a deep breath and wipe my mind clean. Leaving all the strain of meditation behind, I float off and go to sleep.
The balmy warmth is instantly and unmistakably apparent, as I step foot onto the tropical island airport of Maui. I go down to the bowels of the airport to grab my luggage. Still wearing clothes intended for the cool and rainy Seattle habitat, I begin to swelter within their confines. A refreshing tropical mist begins to fall as I arrive at the car rental counter. The people here are very friendly, smile a lot, and are agreeably efficient.
“These are your keys sir. You can find your car at lot C, space twenty-seven. Would you like to have your friend signed in as additional driver? If you do, I would need to see his license,” she informs me with a smile, her attention directed towards someone behind me.
Confused at her question, I stand there with my mouth open and blink a couple of times. Finally understanding her question, I turn around to look behind me. No one is there. In fact, no one else is standing at the counter but me.
“No ma’am, I am by myself,”
Busily looking over the rental agreement, the rental agent looks up at my reply.
“Oh excuse me. I thought that gentleman was with you.” Her eyes gesture to the space just behind me, my head instantly turning to follow the wake of her glance.
“There was someone there just a minute ago,” Kelly a little confused.
“I must be seeing things or going crazy, or both,” she laughs.
“Oh well. No matter. Have a nice time in Maui, sir.”
A chill crash-lands upon my spine, not stopping until all of my extremities are enveloped with it. I look up and down the counter again and survey the parking lots of the rental agency. That eerie feeling of being watched comes over me once again. What am I doing, I ask myself. I am starting to get a little paranoid. I’m beginning to see people following me now, wherever I go. I shake my head and snort at myself.
Large clouds hang over the jagged mountains of Maui’s upland. They look like great copiously humid sponges, just waiting to precipitate. In just a short time I travel through Kahului, the biggest little city on the island of Maui. I gaze out over the widespread fields of pineapple and sugar cane. On a smaller scale, the plains of Maui remind me of the Serengeti plains in Africa. Broad and wide with open arms, extending an invitation to quiet peace and tranquility. The wide open is interrupted only by the distant ascent of the beautiful mountain of Haleakala.
I follow the highway, which brings me to the northeast shore of Maui. Pulling off the road for a bit, I watch the whitecap swells just offshore. About 100 yards out from shore I see five
wind surfers. By virtue of their uplifted sails, they are successfully harnessing the relentless rush of wind, skipping over the water like gigantic multicolored stones.
Back on the road again, I head south for the little town of Paia about ten miles away according to the map. The tropical island sun is high in the sky now. Reaching over I turn the air conditioning to full blast. Far out in front of me, where the road meets the sky, I see waves of humid effluvium rise and dance like moistened glimmering mirages upon the road.
Slowing down to twenty-five mph, I enter the little township of Paia. I surrey slowly through the little laid back town of Paia, full of charm and eccentric little wooded shops.
Slowly moving on through the main street of town, the sun in my face transforms the sidewalk people into indistinct shadowy folk.
Suddenly, a flittering twirling feminine silhouette steals my attention, moving towards me on my side of the street. As this feminine dress-twirling figure walks out of the shadows into the sun, a beautiful Gypsy maiden appears. Tambourine in hand, she happily keeps beat to some unknown song in her heart, continuing to twirl on down the walkway out of my view. For some reason, I have been one of the few chosen to witness such a charming manifestation.
Turning my head to sweep the panorama of the little village, my view reaches the fringe of the town. I see a group of people walking past me on the other side of the road. Each one appears in the guise of long hair and worn and extremely relaxed clothing. All are wearing aged leather sandals, which look as if they could quite possibly be the same brand worn by Christ himself. All seem to be carrying guitars, looking as if they are a part of some unknown poetic minstrel battalion, patrolling the streets looking for true utopia.
Wyatt, Richard Page 19