Gravity Versus Gravity, page 28
Archie heard a wheezing sound in the distance. It sounded as though a low flying jet plane was coming in the direction of the Lake. The sound turned into a sharp shrieking kind of noise.
Alice ran to the window. She saw Archie standing on his boat and looking around. Archie looked up, but he could not see anything. He then heard something heavy falling on the ground. He looked around again but had no idea what had fallen where.
And when he looked at the cliff, he could not believe his eyes. A cloud of dust had formed on the edge. Whatever had fallen had fallen right on the protruding end of the cliff. A large crack had appeared on the precipice. Archie started rowing frantically towards the bank. His hands were shivering. He had barely rowed a few meters when he heard the edge of the cliff crash onto the Lake. There was silence thereafter. The birds stopped chirping once again.
Archie turned around for a moment to look in the direction of the impact. A monster wave was moving towards him. He looked at his house. Alice had come out. She was wailing. Her voice was drowned in the roar of the wave. Archie started rowing faster. He was surprised to experience the sudden surge of adrenalin in him. He was more worried about Alice.
“Go inside,” he shouted at the top of his voice. But Alice kept standing in her place. Archie frantically waved at her. Alice continued to stand where she was. She had stopped wailing and stood still as though she had reconciled with the tragedy that was to befall within seconds. She could have had a better chance if she had run away. But she had decided not to.
Archie’s boat started to rise. He held the oars tightly on both sides. The boat kept rising. Soon his boat was higher than the roofs of the houses, and he could see the area beyond the roofs. He let go the oars and gripped the sides of the boat. The only sound was that of the wave.
Archie was hardly fifty meters from the bank. He had a fleeting thought that should he have rowed harder, he could have reached the bank. He could have seen his wife’s face once before it was over. The sound was deafening. The boat which was moving forward with its tip down so far had straightened and then bent a little backwards as the wave approached. Archie could see the sky. The dark cloud was just above his head, and the sun’s rays were shining along the borders of the cloud.
The huge wave hit Archie’s boat when he was just short of the bank. The boat rode on top of the wave. It hit the first row of houses and then surged forwards with a greater ferocity as it hit open ground. It took with it the three rows of houses behind Archie’s house. Archie had expected the wave to crash onto him, crush the boat and smother him. But the boat floated on the top of the wave. The front of the wave was ahead of the boat and the distance steadily increased. His boat would at times lunge from side to side but then would become stable. He hoped to find Alice so that he could pull her up to the boat. There was no sign of her. The wood that made up the walls of the houses had started coming up and before long surrounded the boat.
Beyond the houses, the wave continued in its path of destruction. As it went up the hill, it devoured stones, trees, and bushes. The trees were uprooted as though they were weeds. Big boulders rolled up with the wave. Archie was wondering if he was dead and was seeing the disaster from above. The wave went up the hill for nearly three minutes. The speed decreased. Just short of the hill-top, the wave started to recede.
Archie found himself and his boat on a tree. The boat was nearly intact, and so was he. He patted himself and smiled. He was as dry as he had been when he had started for the fishing. This is a miracle, he thought as he looked at the wave receding into the Lake.
As the water ebbed, a lot of the heavier debris was deposited on top of the hill. The wooden planks and tree branches went into the lake along with the wave.
Archie’s thoughts at once turned to his wife. If only I had taken her along with me, he thought. I shouldn’t have listened to her. I should have forced her that we evacuate from the place.
He looked towards his house. There was no trace of it. He looked around, and his eyes stopped at something moving on another tree at about a hundred meters from him. It was another person that had survived. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. He could not believe his eyes. It was Alice on top of the tree about fifty meters downhill.
Archie waved at her. Alice was in a daze. She was sitting between two large branches facing Archie’s tree. Archie waved again. He whistled, but only air came out of his mouth. He shouted, but it was more of a low-decibel croak. Finally, Alice looked up and kept looking at Archie waving at her for several minutes. Then, she waved back and slumped on one of the branches.
Archie did not know whether he should laugh or cry. He was worried about Alice, but there was no way he could have come down the tree on his own. The boat hung in such a fashion that the only method of getting down from the tree would have been jumping from the edge of the boat. Archie carefully surveyed all edges of the boat and decided to stay put in his place with minimal movement. Getting to the edge of the boat could topple the boat. And jumping down would only mean breaking his feet since the boat was at least ten meters above the ground.
The wave had retreated into the Lake as though it had never appeared. What had been rows of houses all along the banks were now reduced to empty space. Not a single house was intact. The entangled pieces of wood furniture and trees were scattered up the hill. Only the larger trees, starting from Alice’s tree to the top of the hill, had survived.
Archie saw that Alice was awake. She had faintly waved at him a couple of times. Archie was glad that Alice had recognized him. This would give her more strength to await rescue, Archie thought.
Archie and Alice spent several long minutes on the trees before help arrived. A fire-engine appeared first at the edge of the debris. An ambulance followed it. Two more vehicles followed. Archie waved. He took out his red shirt and waved again. As luck would have it, he was right under the rays of the setting sun. The firefighters noticed Archie and waved back. They took a ladder and started walking towards Archie.
After five minutes, a fireman was peeping at Archie standing on top of the ladder. “This is amazing. I would have never imagined in my dream that I would live to see this. You are remarkably lucky,” the fireman said.
“If I told you that my life is on the other tree, would you believe me?”
“This is insane. You would have a better chance of winning a million-dollar lottery than surviving this catastrophe together.” The fireman looked at Archie with a smiling face and continued, “You are perfectly intact. The boat seems to have received some damage at the bottom, but you look fantastic.”
“Do you think my wife is fine?” Archie said, putting his foot on the ladder.
“We’ll see when we get to her. She looks conscious.”
“I hope she doesn’t have injuries.”
“You could go to the van and wait for your wife. My colleague could accompany you.”
“Thanks. I’m fine. I would like to go to my wife first.”
The three of them made their way through the debris to Alice. She waved at them when they came under the tree.
“Would you be able to come down the ladder?” the fireman asked.
“Yes, I’m perfectly fine. If you had been a little late, I would have climbed down the tree or jumped from here,” Alice replied.
One fireman held the ladder while the other went up. He helped Alice maintain her balance as she lifted her leg above the branch.
“I’ll save you the trouble of walking down the steps,” the fireman said, lifting her with both hands.
Archie and Alice hugged each other for a minute.
“My second luckiest day ever,” Archie said.
“What was your luckiest day?” one of the firemen asked.
“The day I met my wife,” Archie said with a smile.
Everyone laughed. The firemen noticed that while Archie was fine, the same could not be said of Alice. One of them took her in his arms, and they walked together towards the vehicles.
“How did you know that we are here?” Alice asked.
“Our Control Stations have full data about the trajectory of the cloud and every time something falls down, we know where it went down precisely. In your case, the sound of the falling piece, of the falling cliff and of the wave was picked up by one of our Control Stations.”
“Sorry for asking this. But why did it then take you so long to come here? I thought that firemen arrive within seconds.”
“Our Control Station had been informed that the area had been vacated. We were in another place two kilometers from here where the third debris had fallen. We could have rushed and been here in about two minutes. But because we thought that the area was empty, we took our time to finish our work before we came here.” The fireman looked at his watch and continued, “But seven minutes is not bad. In a dangerous situation, every second seems like an hour.”
“Was there a large wave in that area, too?”
“No, nothing of that sort. It was just a concrete piece that fell between the trees.”
“Hmm,” Alice said and closed her eyes.
“Are you sure that you were the only ones left here?” one of the firemen asked.
“Yes, for sure. Alice was very reluctant to leave. She did not believe that the zero-gravity event would occur. She said that the chances of anything falling here were so less that it was not worth the trouble of moving out and then moving in again.”
“Both of you are indeed brave,” one of the firemen said.
“And foolish, too,” Archie replied.
A fireman wrapped a shawl around Archie and said, “You may be physically fine, but you may be in a state of shock. You can lie down if you want.”
Archie looked at Alice who was lying on a stretcher inside the ambulance and said, “I’m comfortable sitting near my wife.” Alice extended her hand and Archie gave his and squeezed Alice’s hand.
“You are going to be all right and live many more years to tell this tale to others,” the fireman said.
The fireman’s wireless came to life. “A fifth piece has fallen,” roared someone.
“Any humans around?” the fireman asked.
“No, it has fallen in an open space. A two-meter-wide crater has been created.”
“We rescued two senior citizens at the Lake. On our way to the Hospital. We’ll go to the fifth spot after we have delivered the gentleman and his wife in safe hands.”
The Control Station verified and confirmed that Archie and Alice were indeed the only ones who had stayed behind at Lake Hutton. Everyone else had listened to the warning and had left for safe places. Alice promised to herself that she would not take any warning in future without the seriousness it deserved. Archie promised to himself that he would listen to his inner voice and not just to his wife when important things in life were concerned.
24
Theon Yates was on a trip around the globe on a light aircraft. His mission was called 100 countries in 365 days. By the time he reached the UK, he was ten days behind his schedule. And as luck would have it, he arrived at the time of the zero-gravity event.
When people would ask him, “What do you know beyond aircraft?” his reply would be, “If I knew something about anything beyond aircraft, I would know as much about aircraft as so many others do.” He was indeed a class apart when it came to aircraft but that also made him a zero in every other aspect. He had not listened to radio, not watched television, and not even read newspapers ever since he had started his latest expedition.
When the people around him spoke about anything but his expedition or aircraft, he would slowly glide the conversation towards the themes he loved. The result was that he heard about the zero-gravity event just as he was preparing to take off from Colchester to Southport.
When he reached the hangar to take out his aircraft, the Keeper said to him, “You are the only one who has come today. Everyone else is sitting in the safety of their homes watching television.”
“Is today a national holiday in the UK?”
“Not a holiday but doomsday.”
“You are joking man. What a nice joke,” Yates said, walking towards his aircraft.
“I’m not joking. Today is the zero-gravity day.”
“What does that mean?” Yates asked. “Is everyone supposed to go to the zero-gravity capsule and experience zero-gravity?”
“You are joking now,” the Keeper said.
“No, I’m not joking. I don’t know what you are taking about.”
“Seriously!” the Keeper replied in shock. “I’ve met a person for the first time who doesn’t know about zero-gravity.”
“Don’t be surprised. And explain to me.”
The Keeper explained to Yates. Yates nodded his head a few times in agreement when the Keeper was telling about the comets and the zero-gravity event. At the same time the Keeper had finished, Yates started walking towards his aircraft.
“Hey,” the Keeper shouted. “Are you really planning to fly?”
“Yes. First of all, I don’t believe completely whatever you have told me right now. And secondly, don’t get me wrong but such stories are created to make televisions and newspapers live longer.”
“It’s not a story. The zero-gravity event has already started. The debris is up in the air. The binary comets are hauling it over to Devon. The debris would soon cross the skies over us, and it would be there for you to see.”
“Then let me see it up close. And let me also experience it,” Yates said.
The Keeper was exhausted. “Unbelievable,” he said, taking out a document from his pocket and handing it over to Yates.
“What is that?” Yates said, trying not to take the paper. “You must know well that I loathe to read anything that is not related to my expedition.”
“This one is. It’s both an advisory and a warning. There is a ban on flying today in various areas in the UK. We are also covered.”
Yates took the paper, quickly glanced over it and in a few seconds handed it over to the Keeper. “This seems like it’s applicable to big commercial planes. Nowhere does it say that light aircraft are not allowed,” he said.
The Keeper did not have more energy and patience to convince Yates out of his expedition. This man is hell bent on putting his life in danger. God help him, he thought. He put the papers back into his pocket and walked back to his cabin.
As Yates came out of the hangar, the Keeper once again came running to him. “Most importantly, there is no radar service today.”
“I don’t need them,” Yates said, heading towards the runway.
Everything is perfect today, Yates thought as the Keeper retreated once again. The weather is fine. The air velocity is ideal. I had no problems starting the engine. And I’m in a great mood. I mean, I was in a better mood before this Keeper came with his stupid fairy tales.
The aircraft took off. Yates admired the beauty of Colchester from above. The rolling hills passed below him and then came vast green fields and then rows and rows of trees. He was alone in the skies, and there was no disturbance from the towers.
Yates was merrily flying. In a few minutes, he had forgotten about the zero-gravity event. He was thinking about his next destination and planning how to fill the gap of ten days.
I’ll be in Dover in an hour. And if I get time, I’ll cross the English Channel today and reach France, Yates thought.
As he turned his aircraft towards the east, he saw a black speck in the distance. At first, he thought that it was another aircraft moving in his direction. But the speck grew bigger in a jiffy. It doesn’t look like a cloud. It doesn’t look like an aircraft either, Yates thought.
Yates was to take a route slightly south east, but he headed towards the east to take a better look at the speck. In about a minute, he had realized that the monster was none other than what the Keeper had been chattering about. It indeed looked like a fairy tale.
The child-like mischievous streak in Yates got into full swing. How can I let such a moment go? I’ve been told a fairy tale, and now I can see the fairy. Let me touch her. Let me hover over her. And let this be the most memorable day of my expedition, he said to himself gleefully.
Yates put his aircraft in full speed and raised the nose. The aircraft kept gaining height as it approached the debris. When the aircraft was about five hundred meters from the debris, Yates slowed it down. Right timing, Yates thought. I can have a good view of the monster from here. He decreased the speed further and took out his camera. He took several pictures. This is such a beauty.
Yates was soon under the debris. The aircraft moved forward without any difficulty. I’m in full control, Yates thought. He crossed the debris and turned around. I want to have a better look from above. He slowed the aircraft as quickly as he reached the debris from above. He took a few photos. He looked down. He was hovering above the debris but was much further away from the edge. The aircraft has moved fast on its own, he thought.
Yates tried to move the transmission. There was no reaction. He pushed the switches frantically. The aircraft did not respond. It stayed in one place above the debris. No matter how much he tried, he could not descend, ascend or turn the aircraft. He frantically tried to reach the air traffic control. SOS, SOS... he sent endless messages. He got no reply.
His navigation went awry. The Keeper was right, he thought. I should have forgotten about my record. He was afraid he had made his last flight. I should keep my cool. He tried to keep calm and gave up desperately trying to maneuver the aircraft.
The aircraft moved forwards with continuous deceleration. And then it came to a full stop. The engine was roaring, but the aircraft hovered about the debris. After a few seconds, the aircraft started going backwards. Amazing! Yates said to himself. He looked down. He could see that he was somewhere near the midpoint of the debris.
After about a minute, the aircraft started descending towards the debris. It went down and further down and went right into the debris. It was pitch black inside. Yates prayed to God and said his last words. He was surprised at his tranquility. The sound of the engines were drowned in the mass around it.
