Colorful Love

Silence

"See you in a week, Alfred!" Amelia waved, "Bring me back a full report!"

She and Alfred shared a laugh knowing that world meetings were probably the least productive things in history. At this point, they were just formalities for the nations of the world with no real other reason to attend. Right now, it was Alfred's turn to attend the world meeting. Amelia had attended the last one (disguised as Alfred of course but the countries don't need to know that) so she would attend the one with the president. Both were to be held on September 13th.

This month's world meeting was going to be held in San Francisco, California, contrary to its usual location of the World Trade Center in New York City. It was intended to be a change of scenery for foreign nations. Alfred planned to fly from Newark, New Jersey where he had been visiting the state to meet his brother, Matthew, at the San Francisco International Airport where he would be landing a few hours later. Amelia's meeting was in the capital.

Alfred gave his sister a goofy grin and walked through the automatic doors. Amelia sighed shakily pushing away thoughts of something bad happening on Alfred's flight and walked back to her car. She never liked flying. Amelia avoided flights like they were the plague. Forcing herself to stay calm, Amelia drove to Washington D.C. where she would stay overnight in the White House with the states.

~

Alfred shoved his carry-on bag into one of the overhead compartments and settled into a chair on his flight, and a man, older than him by at least a decade, turned to him from across the aisle.

"I almost didn't make it to this flight, y'know?"

Alfred smiled, "It's a good thing you made it, sir."

The man smiled in return, "Thank you, lad. Where are you headed?"

"I'm meeting my brother out in California."

"Ah, sounds fun. Don't get into to much trouble."

Alfred nodded as the man turned to his newspaper. Alfred popped his headphones in and pulled out his walkman*. Alfred settled into his seat and prepared for his flight.

About 45 minutes later, Alfred woke to a man shaking his shoulder yelling violently at him in a foreign language. Alfred saw three other men screaming at other people sitting frozen in fear. They looked to be of middle-eastern origin, and they seemed mad. They began shoving everyone towards the back of the plane. One of the men shoved Alfred along with the other passengers and headed for the cockpit. Another followed him while the other two escorted everyone to the back.

In the back of the plane, people murmured amongst themselves about the plane being turned around. Alfred sat wedged between a man on the phone and woman being hushed by a flight attendant. Alfred focused on the conversations and the buckets of questions filling the air. Were they turning around? What had happened on the ground? Where were they going? And most of all: what was going to happen?

One of the men came on the PA system and explained that the plane was being hijacked, and the passengers went into a frenzy. Some whipped out the landline phones calling loved ones through their tears and shaky, anxious breaths. Alfred pulled out his flip phone and typed Amelia's number to alert her of the occurring events.

Suddenly, the plane jerked downward. People screamed.

~

Amelia sat with her children eating ice cream in one of the White House's waiting rooms while waiting for the rest of the states to arrive. So far, just the northeast and the territories hadn't arrived yet, and they said they would get to D.C. in a few minutes. Her mobile buzzed.

She looked at her mobile to see an incoming call from Alfred.

"Guys, it's Alfred!"

A handful of states gathered around happily peppering her with questions about his whereabouts, his plans, his safety, and their uncle too. Like normal. She turned up the call volume, so they could all hear.