Eternity Skye

by Liz Newman

  “Gibbs. This is my award-winning story. This will put me in the ranks of Diane Sawyer and Walter Cronkite. The first multi-ethnic woman ever to win so many awards…we will make history together!”

  “The show crews were here until two last night,” said Gibbs apprehensively. “The morning reporters are already on this, no doubt.”

  Skye poked her head out of her office. People scrambled for their belongings and headed for the exits. Others frantically dialed their phones, trying to reach loved ones. “I want this story, Gibbs,” Skye begged. “Before the evacuees head for home. We need to get witness accounts, interviews”

  “We’ll have the archived footage from the other cameramen. We can work on it as soon as it comes in and air it on the show tonight.”

  “There is no other reporter that will have the insight on this incident like I will. Load up a camera.”

  “Skye, you’re an anchor now, not a field reporter. Let them do the dirty work.”

  “Anchors sit at a desk and read and are easily replaceable. Denny Moss taught me that. No one is going to push me out of this company without a fight, or say I reached the top because of my mother. I will prove them wrong again. I want that Morrow Award, and with this story, I’ll get it. Gibbs, I need your help.”

  “This is crazy,” Gibbs sighed. He looked around at the pandemonium and raked his hands through his curly blonde and gray hair.

  Skye envisioned herself at a podium before hundreds of applauders, holding a Nobel Prize. The vision faded, throwing her mind in turmoil. “You said you would do anything for me, didn’t you? Didn’t I just hear you say that? Now grab a goddamn camera and let’s go. If you ever loved me, you’ll do this for me! You will!” She pounded her fist against her thigh, insistent.

  Minutes later, they sped toward the World Trade Center in a news van. The van dodged in and out of traffic, honking and tailgating cars. Sirens sounded progressively throughout the city; first a fire truck, then an ambulance, then a chorus of police sirens bringing the noise to a crescendo.

  ***

  As the Teleworld news van passed Cedar Sinai Hospital, Tabitha peered out a window on the fifteenth floor. A nurse strode in and instructed her to sit back down on the examining table as if she were a naughty child. Briskly, the nurse commanded her to open her mouth and stuck a thermometer inside. Tabitha mumbled. “Wait a minute, honey,” the nurse said. “I need to get a good reading.” The thermometer beeped, and the nurse popped it out of Tabitha’s mouth, threw its plastic covering away, and wrote down a figure.

  “What’s going on out there?” Tabitha asked.

  “Accident downtown, probably. Your temp’s at one-hundred-and-four. The doctor will be in to see you soon.”

  Tabitha jumped from the examining table and headed toward the window once more as the door flew open and Dr. Martin breezed in. He peered into her mouth with a scope and checked the insides of her ears and nostrils. As he held the cold stethoscope to her chest, she noticed beads of sweat forming on his red forehead. “Parvovirus,” he pronounced quickly. “Otherwise known as slap-cheek syndrome, or Fifth Disease. You’ve got a rough few weeks ahead of you.” He scribbled a prescription for antibiotics on a slip of paper. “You’re highly contagious.”

  “How does someone catch Parvovirus?” Tabitha asked.

  “Children are highly susceptible to it and spread it like wildfire. Try not to be around kids for at least a month.” The phone on the wall beeped loudly. Dr. Martin glanced at it. He resumed his scribbling.

  Tabitha sighed heavily. “The children at the YMCA want to move on to the next chapter. There’s such a shortage of volunteers available during the day.” Tabitha swallowed, grasping her throat in pain. “My wrists are so sore. My whole body.”

  The doctor ripped a page from his prescription pad. “Here’s a pain reliever to ease the discomfort.”

  “Vicodin makes me jittery. Maybe it’s just nerves. My wedding is in four months, and I feel like I’m going mad. And now this.”

  The phone on the wall beeped again, its red button flashing insistently. “Excuse me,” said Dr. Martin, answering the phone. “I’ll be there shortly.” He turned back to Tabitha. “I’ll send the nurse in with further instructions.”

  “Wait! Please. I can’t sleep. I can’t think straight.”

  Dr. Martin appraised his patient. Her big green eyes fixated on him, pleading. He brought out his prescription pad once again. “Here. Valium, ten milligrams. This will ease your tension and allow you to sleep. I’ll put down a few refills but once these refills are gone, I will not authorize any more medication. Come back to see me in six weeks.” He slammed the door shut behind him.

  “So very busy, you are,” Tabitha whispered. She removed the scratchy paper hospital gown and pulled a cashmere turtleneck over her head, peering out the window again. Billows of gray smoke plumed and boiled over the top of Tower One. Tabitha threw open the door and sprinted down the stairs to the safety of her car. She sped out of the parking garage in the opposite direction of the blaze, toward the mansion she shared with Jonas in Westchester.

  ***

  Skye spoke into her cell phone with a representative from John F. Kennedy airport. “Give me that flight number again. Time of departure. How many passengers? Fax me a list of names right now.” Gibbs drove in silence, taking long deep puffs of a cigarette. The crowds of people thickened, and throngs milled about, blocking the van. Skye leaned on the horn. “Press!” she shouted into the crowd. “Move aside! Move aside!”

  Firefighters and policemen herded people away from the burning building. Skye looked up at a dark cloud of gray smoke. Smoke obliterated the sky from her vantage point. “Gibbs, film all these people running, those people looking there. Get the upward angle.” Gibbs leaned out of the van, still driving slowly, and pointed his camera’s lens strategically. The smoke changed colors from gray to black, then gray again.

  Skye leaned over and turned off the ignition. “Set up here.” She climbed down from the passenger seat as a firefighter, his face pinched and worried, rushed toward her.

  “Miss,” the firefighter began, “you need to leave this area immediately—”

  “You do your job!” Skye snapped. “I’ll do mine!” She pushed past the fireman and motioned to Gibbs to point the camera at her. She unwound cords and pressed power buttons on various consoles in the van.

  “For your own safety,” the fireman ordered. “Get out of here!” Skye ignored him, and he waved his arms about, reaching out to grasp her shoulder. She pushed past him, plugging her microphone into the recording equipment. Torrent waves of people moved in all directions, and the fireman turned helplessly, trying to control the stormy sea that tossed him asunder.

  A woman ran toward them and clutched at the fireman, her skirt tattered, and a heel of her shoe broken. “My husband is in a wheelchair and he’s waiting at the stairs. On the ninth floor. Please, please!” She dragged the firefighter away by his yellow jacket. Droves of helmeted firefighters passed her, running into the building with axes.

  Skye positioned herself closer to Tower One with Gibbs trailing her. A reporter from one of Teleworld’s top competitors spoke into a camera, stopping for a split second to glare at them as they completed their set up a few feet away. Skye ran her hands through her hair, facing the camera and nodding at Gibbs.

  “This is Skye Evans, reporting live from the site of the plane crash at the World Trade Center. At approximately eight-fifteen this morning, a flight bound for the west coast took off from JFK airport”

  The reporter from the other news station yelled into his microphone.

  “The people trapped on the upper floors of Tower One, below where the plane hit, are jumping! Rather than facing the inferno inside, they are choosing to end their own lives!”

  Skye turned and looked to see a businesswoman dressed in a cream-colored skirt and pink knit top. The woman seemed to hover in the air above the burning building. As she plummeted toward the ground, her jacket f
lew behind her like a superhero’s cape, as if she would simply alight onto the street purposefully, one foot in front of the other. Bodies flew to the ground. Two people jumped together . A man with his arms flailing, his tie draped across his neck, faced toward the heavens as he descended.

  “Don’t look anymore,” Gibbs said. “Let’s leave.”

  Skye looked at him in a trance.

  “No,” she said, her voice filled with gravel. “Roll it.”

  She inhaled deeply, forcing herself to look away. A single tear coursed down her cheek as she blinked. She sniffled and wiped the tear away with her hand. Somalia, the starving children in Laos, the mutilations in Uganda. I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. It’s just the news, that’s all. Just the news. Her hand itched to slap her own cheek. Get it together, Skye. Finish the shoot, you whiny little girl. Finish it.

  She cleared her throat and began to speak. “At the site of”

  The reporter who stood a few feet away from her yelled, “My god! Oh, my god!”

  The booming sound of an airplane tore through the sky above, with a loud crash on impact into Tower Two. The boom reverberated as she fell to her knees, covering her head. Chills shook her body as she remained curled up in a ball on the ground.

  Her ears rang, a constant stinging, like feedback from a speaker. She dug her fingers into her ears, trying to clear away the sound. She rose and turned to face the stampeding crowd. The peculiar buzzing noise obliterated all other cacophony. Gibbs pulled on her arm with one hand, and with the other he held the heavy camera, pointing it at the fire and smoke coming from the second building. Droves advanced toward them in panic, a flock of frightened beasts stampeding everything they met. Then she heard nothing—there was complete silence. She felt her mouth moving as she turned to see a man in a tattered suit push past her, his mouth opened in anguish. She swallowed and heard popping in her ears.

  In an instant, the silence gave way to screams. A woman running by Skye shrieked so loudly Skye’s ear began to throb and ring again. Skye felt something warm on her fingers. She pulled her hand away and found a trickle of blood. Tower One creaked and groaned, rocking back and forth. The ground beneath her heels shook.

  Hell rained down from the skies, on the streets and its occupants. Skye held her hands over her head. The sounds of exploding metal boomed as the building buckled, with a deafening crash, and the entire building flattened like a coil crushed by a child’s hand. Her own body crumpled to the ground as she screamed and screamed until she couldn’t even hear her own voice, positive she merely crouched with her mouth opened in a scream from which no sound would emerge. Thousands of shoes in sneakers, heels, loafers, jumped over her or stepped around her.

  Gibbs dropped the camera and pulled Skye by the arm. She tore herself away from him and ran back, picking up the heavy camera and trying to hoist it onto her shoulder. He pulled the camera out of her arms and lifted her up and ran from the calamity as she kicked and clawed him. Billows of gray smoke rose and swallowed everything behind them. Gibbs carried her in his arms and ran through side streets and alleyways, until the sounds of the screaming and sirens faded far behind them. He put her down on the ground near an alleyway at Gold and Chestnut Streets. She beat at his face and chest with her fists.

  “Breathe, Skye.” His voice was deep and soothing as he grabbed her wrists. “Just breathe.”

  Skye’s eyes widened as she scowled. His fault. Somehow. All his fault.

  “Let me go! You ruined it!” Skye screamed at him between gasps for air. Her voice sounded thin and strained. “Some of the best footage I’ve ever been in, and you let it go! How could you!”

  Gibbs leaned forward, his hands on his knees. “Are you insane! You would have died back there. From all the dust, the noise…the equipment broke. The footage...lost. It wouldn’t have made a difference.” He pounded on his chest with his right fist and took deep, labored breaths.

  “Gibbs?” Skye reached to steady him.

  “I can’t breathe. Help me, Skye. I can’t breathe.” He collapsed onto the sidewalk.

  “Oh, god! Hang on.” She ran her hands through her hair. Her hands emerged streaked with blood and ash. She fumbled through her pockets and retrieved her phone, dialing 9-1-1.

  “All circuits are busy,” the voice droned. “Please try your call again later.”

  She grasped Gibbs’ hands.

  “No, no, no! Stay with me. Don’t close your eyes. Stay awake.” She knew her words didn’t make much sense, but they flooded from her lips. “There is more to do. More awards to win. Stop being silly. Stop it. You can’t leave me. We’re friends, right? Friends don’t leave each other.”

  He stared at her and tried to smile. He took one last shallow breath, and the light of his soul dimmed. The billowing clouds of soot encased or surrounded Gibbs’ motionless figure, and as she crouched on her knees next to him, the victorious, thick fog overcame her. His eyes tilted, the whites filling up with ash. She took her coat off, using it to wipe the ash from his face.

  She strained to lift him. “Don’t die,” she shrieked. “You won’t die, you hear me! You won’t! I care, I care, I care, I really do. Don’t you believe me. Open your eyes if you believe me. Please. Get up. Get up!”

  She dragged him by the cuffs of his shirt. His sleeve cuff ripped, and his arm dropped limply back onto the ground.

  She backed away from his motionless body and then ran toward the nearest building and pushed open the glass door. People huddled against the walls, speaking in hushed voices, an occasional wail breaking through the quiet. A security guard handed her a dust mask. Her throat and eyes stung with debris, as she coughed.

  “Please bring him inside,” she wept. “I can’t. I tried. I really did try. He’s not dead. He can’t be. He’s just asleep, or tired...I think. Because everything will be fine. Everyone will be fine. It’s just the news, you know. Just the news.” The security guard shook his head apprehensively. As tears formed rivers down her blackened cheeks, he motioned to a co-worker, and they left the building in search of Gibbs’ body.

  A group of tourists huddled together, some weeping, others staring in shock. She gestured toward a video camera, tucked underneath a tourist’s arm.

  “May I?” Skye asked.

  He handed the camera to her. She pressed the record button and began filming. “It’s going to be okay,” she said to a couple who stared at her with cold eyes.. “It’s just TV.”

  Chapter Five

  Skye anchored her show like she lived in a dream in which she wished to remain. For in this zombie trance, she consoled herself that the tragic events she witnessed that morning could still be imaginary. Simple words scrolled on the black screen of the teleprompter, followed by a movie laden with special effects. The searing pain of realization buried its wound deep into her subconscious. She treasured the robotic motions of reading from the teleprompter, her soul somehow floating above her body and not quite trapped in it. Behind a clear glass pane, the intern Gibbs worked with, controlled the cameras from where Gibbs used to sit.

  “In closing,” Skye spoke into Camera One, her voice choked and hollow, “Around The Clock lost one of our very own at today’s tragedy. Gibson Greevey will be remembered as one of the finest cameramen to have ever worked in broadcasting. I leave you with a reel of his best work. May he rest in peace. Good night.”

  The show ended and the lights in the studio dimmed, and as the technicians somberly cleared the room, Skye sat at her desk undisturbed. Edie approached her. “You all right?”

  After she untangled it out of her stiff hair, Skye’s earpiece clattered onto the desk. “I can barely hear you on this goddamn thing.” Skye wiped tears from her eyes, rubbing the streaks of eye make-up on her fingers until they disappeared.

  “I’ll have a new one for you tomorrow. You sure you’re okay?” Edie asked. “Can I help?”

  “I’ll be fine.” Skye took a deep breath and looked up. “The funeral is on Friday. You’d think every undertaker in
the city would be too busy but…most of the bodies are missing. I’m sure a lot of people will be found alive. They could just be hiding. Or scared.” She rose, stifling a sob, and walked out of the studio.

  The next few days went by in the same mechanical way. The footage from the attack on the World Trade Center played repeatedly, but even Alfred took little pleasure in the skyrocketing increase in ratings. Only Denny Moss hummed, a noise rooted in pleasure as if she skipped as she made her way through the halls of Teleworld. Her turn to take the anchor’s chair would commence on Friday. Skye simmered in her office at the sound of Denny’s laughter. She picked up the phone a dozen times a day, thinking she should call a friend and make plans for the hours after Gibbs’ funeral. Even worse, she couldn’t think of anyone whose company would comfort her more than being alone. She feared those hours might present an excellent opportunity to commit suicide.

  On Friday, the weather at Chapel Grove Cemetery shone with elements far too spring-like and cheery. Three ravens flew upward from a maple tree, their mocking cries echoing across the sky. Skye stared blankly ahead in a black suit as Gibbs’ elderly mother and father and waifish sister threw the first fistfuls of dirt onto his lowering casket, covered with flowers. Three other funerals took place on the wide expanse of lawn. Skye once heard spirits of the dead inhabited ravens, and she ascertained there flew only three, because Gibbs’ spirit would haunt her for the rest of her eternal life. She resigned herself to damnation, and felt she deserved it. She thought back to her arrival home on Tuesday afternoon, how the water she showered in turned chalky and gray, and how she stared at the dirt melting off her body in surprise. She wanted to wear that dirt forever. As it carried out in life, in a few weeks, months, or years, the stain of the tragedy would wash away in most people’s minds and they would find other things to occupy their senses. Even the terrorists were blessed to be dead. She would live to own the guilt for the blood on her head. The thought tortured her to the very core.