Dehydration

Chapter 2

Alex looked out the window a smile flitted across his face as he scouted the darkness below. There was nothing, just void as he swept across the sky.

His features were similar to that of the sky, dark and gaunt. His eyes were a hazel brown and his dark hair poked at his nose as the longer strands grew in.

He was a professor of Philosophy at a community college in the northeast and his dark mysterious features had been the overarching reason for the classes record attendance.

He had been invited to a small college in Germany to make a lecture on his unique paper: "The Real Psycho-history." This idea of Psycho-History was a fictional yet incredibly plausible idea created by Issac Asimov. It was the idea that the future could be predicted by historical and psychological implications.

Alex's view was that the idea was rather fantastical but one which deserved some consideration. His paper was radical even among radicals. It suggested that post-modern philosophy was an attempt to discover Psycho-History and that a scientific theory of everything would look similar to Psycho History.

This, of course, was not well received by the Philosophical Community and Alex had been shunned as a "Community College Wannabe." Yet a few extremely liberal philosophers gave the paper some consideration and many agreed with his assumption.

Flying over the Atlantic Alex's ideas ran rampant. The Boeing 747 he was sitting in was comfortable but cramped. To his right a heavy women sat. Alex had many unkind and un-philsophical thoughts of her as she continued her loud snoring.

Across the isle sat his colleague Jacob Speril who was also melodically snoring to the beat of the elevator music playing in the plane. Speril was perhaps one of his best friends and it had a no-brainier, bringing him along to Germany.

He sat still and closed his eyes. When he was in college he had traveled abroad to India. From his experiences he had learned many meditative practices and he still clung to them.

He sat and meditated and soon was lost in his own world of silence. He stirred as the darkness became eclipsed by the light from the asteroid shower. It was 9:28 p.m.



Fate plays a huge part in humanities life. It weaves its way through time winding its way across everyone's seperate lives. Generally it doesnt effect humanity and even gives the air of free will but every so often fate saves lives.

There were no sirens or even an announcement from the pilots but the nose slightly dipped as the airplane's wing flaps failed. This in and of itself was not disastrous but it ruled out a safe landing.

The pilots decided to continue the flight but were soon persuaded otherwise when the electromagnetically controlled navigator went offline from the disturbance of the asteroids.

"We can't fly in blind," Charles the co-pilot said to his superior.

"Yeah I know Charles we will have to make a quick landing in the water. It isn't that serious because we can still land in the water relatively safely," said the older pilot, David. Charles got up and walked to the little phone on the wall just outside of the cockpit.

Both had under 1 week to live.



"This is your Captain speaking. We will be making an emergency landing in the ocean. There is no need to worry there is nothing drastically wrong but we are unable to make a safe landing at any airports," there a few seconds of static and then the elevator music resumed its cacophony.

The snoring of the women next to Alex had not been interrupted in the least but as he looked across the isle, Alex saw his horrified expression mirrored on many faces.

Alex looked at Jacob and voiced his question,"What do you think is going on?" Jacob just shrugged but he was so tense that his shrug never ended making him look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

For a moment, a thick veil of silence shrouded the cabin. Then all at once an outcry of frightened people gushed through the isles. The flight attendants attempted to calm everyone down but the act was so futile even they didn't seem to believe in what they were saying.

The nose of the plane gently arched down and everyone gasped.

"My god we are going to die!" said a women who sat a few rows in front of Alex. That proclamation seemed to shut everyone up for a second and just before more cries could make there way out of anymore mouths, the plane made a gentle landing in the ocean.

Everyone let out a collective breath and then the mayhem began again. But before it could get very far the speaker crackled.

"This is your captain speaking. We have made an emergency landing. We have notified air traffic control. We are only 70 miles away from Maine so they should have rescuers here in less than 24 hours. Until then I would like you all to remain calm. We will be staying in the aircraft since we have plenty of food and supplies."

The speakers crackled again and there was silence. Everyone was silently undergoing shock. The whole ordeal had lasted ten minutes but in those ten minutes trauma had curved its blade deep into the minds of all the passengers.

There were 180 people on the flight, within a week 80 would remain alive.