The Writer's Cramp: October 13, 1976

October 13, 1976

For the 100 people lost in the Santa Cruz air crash of October 13, 1976, and for those they left behind.

That morning dawned like any other.  There was no omen, no telltale sign to suggest that October 13, 1976 would be anything tremendously exciting, or terrible.  But it was.

I was woken unusually early by the phone ringing beside me.  I had quite the mind not to pick it up at all, but reason overcame my annoyance and I did so.  My sister, Sofia, gasped down the line at me, “Ava, my darling, I know your alarm doesn't go off yet, but I need to get to work and I wanted to ask you to meet me for lunch this afternoon.”

I found it strange for Sofia, a meticulous planner.  Indeed I had another lunch date scheduled with her, a month or so from then.  “Is it a special occasion, Sofi?” I asked. 

She giggled.  “I have the most wonderful news for you, Ava.  But I cannot tell you now.  Will you meet me at half past one in Café Lucia?”

“Yes, yes,” I grumbled.  She said something else – I cannot remember today – and gave me a cheery goodbye before hanging up.

I threw my dark, bed-frazzled hair into an untidy bun and made my way to the kitchen, mulling over my little sister's secrecy.  Had she gotten her big break?  Perhaps Miguel had finally taken the plunge and asked her to marry him.  I called Mama.  She could shed no light on the situation, but simply got very excited and demanded I phone her as soon as I got home this evening to pass on the gossip. 

As it turned out, I would never know my sister's big news for certain, though we have long guessed that she was to have a baby.  Miguel knew not, but said that Sofi would have told me before even himself.  If that be the case, then I mourn two of my kindred. 

***

My lunch hour came and I was gone like a stone from a sling.  I was late – was I not always?  It was coming up on twenty to two and I was hurrying as fast as I could through the streets of Santa Cruz in my tall work shoes (and my favourite shoes – a gift from Sofi). 

My feet were stopped, along with everyone else's on this particular side-street, by a great noise, a tremendous roar above our heads.  We stood in silence, our faces tilted to the sky, and our palms pressed tight against our ears.  Nothing could keep this sound out.  It took up all available space, pounding our foreheads.  It lingers in my mind to this day. 

A plane flew low – far too low – above us, not quite grazing the rooftops, but not far from it.  It went on for a short time, dropping as it did so, until suddenly, just within sight, it landed.  Exploded.  We turned our faces from the scene, the all-consuming blaze and the sound, that dreadful sound, of screaming up ahead. 

And then, like clockwork, we all began to run – not away from the crash, but towards it.  I realised as we ran that the plane had come down in the main avenue, the street on which most of my best loved shops and restaurants were located – including Café Lucia – but it didn't occur to me then that my sister might have been caught up in it.  How could it?  It was like the lottery.  These things didn't happen to me, not to my family, not to my friends.  In all my life before then I could not recall a single instance of extraordinary good luck, or tragedy. 

But there it was, staring me right in the face as I rounded the corner onto that wretched avenue, a scene that is forever burned into my mind, an image of indefinable horror that rises up to greet me every time I shut my eyes.  Everywhere, everyone was running, and screaming.  The street was littered with twisted metal, fiery debris, and most horrifying of all,bodies. 

Human bodies. 

I could scarcely believe it.  There were bodies everywhere, twenty, thirty, forty of them, all around me.  Men, women, children.  It was a scene straight from the Apocalypse.  Everything was blood and fire.  The sky was choked with it.  I felt as I stood there that I stood before the gates of hell. 

It seemed an age before it dawned on me, and my glazed eyes moved past the wreckage, past the green area strewn with the motionless forms of young footballers, to the space where Café Lucia had stood just a few minutes before. 

My breath caught. 

I fell to my knees. 

And I prayed.  I prayed that, for once in her life, my sister was late.  My cries joined the cries of the mourners around me as I dropped forward, screaming, my head in my hands. 

***

I don't quite remember how I got home.  A fireman noticed me, my mother later told me, crawling to the burning wreck of Café Lucia. 

Sofia, gone?  Not my Sofia.  I sat by the door for days in mother's house, with Miguel beside me, and we watched the door for her return.  Each day the reality crept up on us like a cat stalking a mouse; illogical, irrational, terrible reality. 

And then one day I stopped.  I went home.  I had sat for so long in silence, unutterably sad, but I let myself go home, and I took out our photo album.  Our own photo album, Sofia and Ava, just us, half full.  I opened it and allowed myself to cry for my sister, my Sofia, my bright star.