a lens dimly realistic

It was the most exciting day of my life. I don’t know why my mind kept wandering…

She wanted to fly to Hawaii. I had wanted to take a boat – can’t feel safe at 35,000 feet. Eventually I gave in, thinking it would mean more time on the islands. The flight left at 7:20 am, not a hard time to make at an airport less than 10 miles from our apartment. Hard when you don’t fall asleep until 4 am though. In LA traffic, we didn’t arrive until 7:15. After 2 hours of pleading with officials, we had tickets for the next day.

No, we made it on the right plane in plenty of time.

Everything was going fine, zero turbulence, a tailwind, and lovely flight attendants. I wasn’t, I WASN’T looking at her backside. REALLY. My eyes led me to a man fidgeting slightly, open laptop on his tray table. Looked like some kind of plan, bulleted, from what I could see two rows back. Screams, panic, the nice attendant’s a hostage on Flight 488 to Honolulu. Everything happened so fast, killed the pilot and instructions are missing from their laptop. I knew we should have taken a cruise. Co-pilot was new, didn’t know enough to stop us from going down, down into the azure waters 100 miles off the coast of Maui.

No, we touched down safely.

The man packed up his laptop and headed for the baggage claim, joined by two nice looking Hawaiian ladies. Wasn’t looking at them either. That’s an awfully big ring though. Wonder if he bought her that? We followed them to our luggage. I noticed one of the suitcases he picked up looked pretty heavy, for being so small. Another seemed too light. I lost his trail when we stopped for the restrooms. She took forever. That was normal but I started to get worried. Then the screams came. I tried to stop the masked man but he got away. Security took him down and I retrieved my wife’s purse. That was all I had left of her.

No, bathrooms were busy but she was fine.

We met the trio again near the taxis. Tension in the air, something wasn’t right. The man was fidgeting again. This time the small heavy suitcase was open in place of the laptop. He was bargaining with someone a little overdressed for a cab driver. His nervous mood and dark hair was mirrored in the car window, and in the driver. They could almost be brothers. Looked like guns in that case, 3 or 4 of them. Suddenly another car pulled up, a black Chrysler. They slowed down, tinted window down, the man with the laptop and the women and the suitcase went down. Those two ran, and the cars took off in either direction.

No, the trio got in the cab and took off.

She hit me for staring. That woke me up a little. Didn’t matter, I couldn’t sleep anyway, not until we got into the hotel. She had a shower, and I had a nap on the queen sized bed. I awoke to screams. In the bathroom I found her, how many times had I told her, HOW MANY TIMES, she was going to get herself hurt, it wasn’t safe to dry your hair standing in the shower even without the water running.

No, she was fine; I woke up when she joined me.

We made our own dinner on a secluded beach, complete with romantic campfire, warm breeze, and relaxing surf. I was wishing I could have bought her a ring like the one I saw today, she was probably thinking the same thing, but you couldn’t tell that from our smiles. We were too caught up in each other to notice the boat offshore, or the trio walking the shoreline. I was easing her down onto the oversized towels in the soft black sand while the boat was easing closer to the beach. The trio saw the fire, signaled to the boat. That I noticed. Flashlights they had were bright, unfortunately I understood the blinking as Morse code: PAIR FIRST. THEN DEAL. Running wasn’t easy in the soft sand that was suddenly sided with the enemy. Small rocks cut my feet; her dress was a thing of the past as we made a break for it. Two shots, I wasn’t hurt, she went down and I kept running. My dark suit was harder to see than her white skin. Finally they gave up pursuit and I hid behind an outcropping, watching. I saw the gleam of the big ring, and recognized the light suitcase. Where was the third woman? I turned around in time to see the gleam of metal, hear it cock, and smell the perfume I enjoyed this afternoon. “Sorry you got involved” was all she said before dealing me two to the shoulder. I’ll never know why she spared my life. I woke up in the hospital and called our families. My wife of two days was dead.

No, NO! This time …it was real.

It wasn’t the honeymoon I imagined. It was much, much worse.