A Vision of Fire

Or else it’s the scotch, he thought, snapping the spell.

Quickly wrapping the object, he put it back in the case and pulled off the gloves. Shutting his eyes and drifting swiftly into sleep, he dreamed of high ocean waves rushing over him in forceful, endless succession. He saw lights through the breakers: orange and flickering specks that formed strange, unfathomable shapes. But they were lost in the waves before he could make them out and they were different each time they appeared. Were they taunting him? So visible yet so remote…

He woke with a jolt as the aircraft jerked violently.

“Seat belts!” the pilot announced over the intercom.

Half-asleep, Jasso fumbled for the strap as the sole attendant weaved her way over.

Just as she reached him the plane tilted and she was swept backward against one of the seats on the other side of the aisle. Jasso reached to help her but was restrained by his own belt and grabbed the sliding camera case instead. The attendant slid into the seat and fastened her belt.

Hugging the case to his chest, he was again aware of the low buzzing he had felt when holding the artifact. He looked out the window and noticed that the aircraft was flying very low, just about five hundred feet from the ground. It was dawn and the flaming sunrise obscured his vision, yet what he saw was unmistakable. Well over a dozen albatrosses were flying dead-on toward the underside of the jet, their eight-foot wingspans batting hard as they struggled to achieve the jet’s height. He had never known the birds to seek this height or speed and was about to remark on the abnormality to the flight attendant when the birds began to drop, either exhausted or asphyxiated.

And then the world itself suddenly vanished.

The interior of the jet, the sky, and the low clouds seemed to depart, and in their place an explosive flash of red blinded him. His nostrils were filled with a smell like burning plastic, or was it sulfur? And his breath felt thick, tasted noxious on his tongue. His mind turned like a spinning top, his body seemed to liquefy, and his eardrums rumbled. The last rational thought he had was that one of the birds had been caught in the engine and they were plunging to earth. But there were no whining turbines, no rush of air, no impact—

“No!” he screamed in his mind.

“Mr. Jasso!”

The flight attendant’s voice was at the far end of a tunnel.

“Mr. Jasso!” she repeated.

His shoulders were being shaken and his head bobbed in circles as he fought through the sensory chaos. Like poured molasses the plane began to come back into focus just as it thumped to a hard landing on the tarmac. He was aware of the rear-mounted jets roaring to help brake the aircraft, felt himself being pressed against the seat, saw the calm white of the cabin spread out in front of him…

The flight attendant was hastily undoing her belt.

“Wait, who had my shoulders?”

“Are you all right, Mr. Jasso?”

“What? Yes, yes. I’m fine,” he said.

But he wasn’t. He felt nauseous, panicked. The vinyl of the camera case felt hot, no doubt from how tightly he had been clutching it.

“I’ll get you some water,” the woman said.

“No, I’m all right. Weren’t you affected?” he said, starting to get paranoid.

“By what?” she asked. “The turbulence?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “You didn’t hear anything? See anything? Birds?”

“At this altitude?”

“That’s what I thought,” he said, more to himself.

“No,” she said as the jet slowed and steadied. “I wasn’t looking outside. Perhaps a cloud formation, a trick of the sunlight?”

“Maybe.”

“Mr. Jasso, you look pale. Would you like to have a doctor meet us at the terminal?”

“No, I’ll be fine,” he said. “It was just… overwork, I guess. It will pass.”

She accepted his explanation with reluctance and went to the cockpit. The engines had slowed to a dull hum. Jasso thought he heard the woman ask about damage. The pilot said he was going out to check the aircraft when they refueled but didn’t think he was going to find anything. The engines and flaps seemed fine.

Jasso drained what was left in his glass and sat very still as the jet taxied toward the refueling area. It seemed impossible, but…

But the birds… they weren’t an illusion. They seemed to be throwing themselves at the jet.

Was there something in the artifact that had… something in the stone, the metal? Perhaps it had interacted with particles in the air, with the electronics of the jet.

He looked at the case, which sat blank and unrevealing on the table. It was somehow menacing in its faceless simplicity. With sudden urgency he reached for the flap and threw it back, taking out the cloth-bound artifact.

The only thing trembling was his hand. The stone was very still. It was also cool. Whatever had begun in Port Stanley was apparently over.