Andrew Cothren is a recent graduate of Binghamton University, where he received his Bachelor’s Degree in Creative Writing. He has so far had stories published in The Battered Suitcase, The Susquehanna Review, and Quintessential Zine.

An Apology (January 20, 2011. Issue 24.)

We’re sorry. We really are. We know that it’s unfair, dying like this, on a flight that you feel you shouldn’t be on in the first place. It isn’t your fault, though. It’s always been meant to end like this, right here. Believe us, we’re the experts when it comes to these sorts of things. Change anything you ever did in your life and you still end up on this plane, in the window seat.

What happened is this: a faulty mechanism in the right engine short-circuited and caused an explosion which removed the better part of the right wing. Now you and your fellow passengers are plummeting, and in roughly eight seconds you will all be reduced to a pile of charred rubble and microscopic bone fragments in the corn field of one Eugene Story, a farmer in Dagwood, Iowa.

We can see that this fact is, at this moment, of little concern to you. Your mind has been on Laura for the entirety of this flight and, if we may be so honest, for the better part of your adult life. So we understand your very divided attention, how little what we are saying matters to you as you grab for your cell phone, hoping you have enough time to call her, to tell her the things you failed to mention at the wedding reception a few hours ago. You can still see her, beautiful as ever, in her dress near the head of the table, her husband-to-be next to her, beaming, as you search desperately for the words to convey your love, to tell her everything. Instead you kept reading from the index card in your shaking hand, using the word “congratulations” several times too many, your mind made up to catch the next flight out of San Francisco, no matter the cost. You must believe us when we say that your pain in that moment was ours as well. And it hurts us even more to tell you that your call will not go through, that you don’t have enough time to so much as dial the first digit of her number. She does not, and will not ever, know the love for her that you hold, kicking and screaming, inside of you.

As the plane breaks through the lowest level of clouds, you now have roughly four seconds left until impact. The dark green of Mr. Story’s field has filled your window. Soon the farmer will hear the calamitous noise of your plane crashing outside and throw his body over his wife Margaret’s in a gesture of love that, when they think back to it in years to come, will be the moment when they rekindled their stagnant marriage. They will use the money they get from the airline that owns this plane to travel around the world, and for the rest of their life they will take every opportunity to invite guests and mailmen inside for an impromptu slideshow of their adventures.

Though your time on this earth is quickly running out, take solace, for we bring good news: in two seconds, as your body is split into pieces too small to ever identify, you will suddenly know what it is to die, and what happens afterwards. Billions of people have spent all of human history forming theories and trying to understand the exact thing that is about to happen to you and the other 167 passengers and crew on board. You will all soon become members of the exclusive group of those who have experienced the afterlife.

Before that happens, we should explain exactly what it is that you will be going through. When your body dies, your consciousness, for a brief moment, continues on without you. That moment, though brief in time, lasts an eternity. Though you have remembered, forgotten, and ignored many things in your life, no moment has passed by unnoticed by your consciousness; the glint of your mother’s eye the night your parents renewed their vows, the drenched color of Laura’s dress as she stood by her dead car on the rainy afternoon you met, the smell of the soccer field during homecoming when you broke your leg, the goosebumps on Laura’s arms the night when you’re sure you could have kissed, the pattern of the hotel carpet in Cape Cod when you were six, the many moments when the words were on the tip of your tongue, almost escaping, almost letting her know, Laura, Laura, Laura.

Now that you have five tenths of a second left, as the nose of the plane just begins to meet the dirt of Story Farm, you can see this vast catalogue of moments. Your reward, in death, is your favorite among them. Simple as that. Choose from the vast array the one that will be your eternity. Your current understanding of time prevents us from explaining adequately to you how, exactly, it works, but we assure you that this eternity is not some sort of punishment, not something that you will feel trapped in. It is a reward, a way of proving how very, truly sorry we are about the end of your life. All you need to do is choose.

It’s a strange choice to make, we know. Everyone on board is going through the same thing, however, so you are not alone. Keith, the man sitting next to you, has chosen the moment on the morning after his wedding night when he lay in bed with his new wife beside him, half a second before she woke up, the radiator by the foot of the bed clicking as it filled with hot water, the sun coming through the window and catching the stray strands of hair fraying outwards from her head in a way that made it look as though she were wearing a halo. Mary, the blonde flight attendant that tried to flirt with you when you ordered your vodka tonic is now letting her consciousness take her to the instant when she first learned to ride a bike on two wheels, exactly when her father’s hands left the small of her back and let her fly forward on her own. The co-pilot is experiencing the time Heather James, his lab partner in biology, went down on him on Halloween night, 1975, and the split second when he felt the long threads of the shag carpet in her finished basement between his toes as his eyes locked on to the pretty Let’s Make a Deal contestant in a pirate costume on the flickering television screen in the corner, trying to look anywhere but down. It’s not an easy choice, we know. But it’s one that they have all made and are all very, very happy with.

So that’s the one you want? Well, let us just say it may not be the one we would have picked, but it is your choice, and we respect it. As you die, now, let that moment become more vivid, clearer through the haze that your final impact with the earth is creating in your vision. You can see it now, can’t you? You remember and this is it, this is your moment, your eternity, that long drive to Denver, flying down Interstate 70, several tornadoes, dark smudges, visible in the distant horizon over the flat earth the two of you in the convertible you got when Laura flirted with the car rental guy, got him to cut his price, roof down, her hair long and whipping, tangling with yours, ending up wet in the corner of your mouth, the radio turned up as loud as it can be, the speakers rattling, her singing along, destination unknown Ruby Ruby Ruby Ruby Soho, her glasses lopsided from when she sat on them back in St. Louis, her skin still beautiful in its post-sunburn peeling, the words you’d waited years to say just right there, on the last buds of your tongue, waiting to be said, waiting to shatter this perfect moment, as the Rockies peek over the horizon and you hit a slight hill, weightless, the butterfly feeling in the pit of your stomach, the nub of the door lock poking into your elbow, suddenly aware of every possibility, life stretched out before you both like the rolling, unbroken plains.