Short Stories

The Sky's the Limit

written: may 22, 2019

Once upon a time, she had dreamed that she would soar amongst the clouds. As a child, she would stare up at the passenger planes that zipped past every twenty minutes, to an unknown destination. She wondered how it felt to fly tens of thousands of feet above the clouds, her lips curling upward as she entertained the thought of never having to land on the ground ever again. As the sunlight bounced off the wings of the airplane, she would hold her hand above her eyes and squint to see another plane zoom off into the unknown, desperately wishing to be one of them.

Now, a decade later, she clutches her first airplane ticket tightly in her hands. Giddy with joy, she settles down in the window seat, peering out at the runaway, alive with action. At 8:14 a.m, her United plane takes off from Boston to Los Angeles. Childlike happiness floods her veins as she watches the clouds zip by, and the shrinking city of Boston below. This was happening. She really was flying.

"This is everything I wanted," she grinned at the person sitting to her left, "I never want to come down." And on that morning of September 11, 2001, her wish came true