Editing The Novel Course

Exercise – First Person

Flying was my first love and Karen was my second. She was terrified of flying, but I convinced her to fly with me. What a mistake that turned out to be.

I opened the door of my twin engine beechcraft, watching as she climbed onto the seat. Karen had the most gorgeous hips and the roundest bottom I’d ever seen. I swallowed, trying to take my mind off her body.

"We're not even moving and I feel like I’m going to be sick. My sister wouldn’t believe I’m actually going to fly."

I winked and touched her cheek. "You're in safe hands."

"I love you. You’re the best."

The sky was a cloudless blue and the breeze was light as the breath of an angel.

Clearance was granted and we sped down the runway. After five minutes in the air, Karen was gagging and her face was completely drawn of colour.

"I'm sorry, babe. Let me bank and land, this is enough for your first time."

She raised her hand to her lips and I thought she was going to throw up. This wasn’t what I’d planned.

I lowered the handle to drop down the gear and an orange light flashed, warning it was still up. A visual check by the tower confirmed the gear hadn’t lowered and all attempts to make it do so failed.

I looked over at Karen and tried to ease her distress with a smile. "At jet fighter school, they train us in the simulator to land with the gear up. This will be like a walk in the park."

Her fingers were balled into fists and her knuckles were white as pearls. I silently cursed when my nose told me she was sitting in a puddle of her pee.

We were about to make contact with the ground and I pulled back on the stick. The sound of crunching metal vibrated through me and the right wing caught on the tarmac and spun us around. There was a hissing sound and a spark as the cockpit filled with smoke.

I unbuckled my belt and reached over to Karen. She wasn’t making a sound and I struggled to free her. Tears were dripping from my eyes and my lungs were burning. The firefighters couldn’t open Karen's door and one of the rescue workers began tugging my arm.

My fingers blistered as I touched her metal buckle, trying to free her. The last thing I felt before losing consciousness was the softness of her arm.

Six months later, the burns were gone, but I had lost my love to fly and the nightmares of Karen’s death were still with me.

None of the other pilots wanted to fly on my wing and I couldn’t blame them.

The squadron leader was a patient man and I stood at attention in front of his desk. "Scott, I’ve just signed papers transferring you to the Naval Fighters Weapons School."

I stood like a store mannequin and finally mumbled. "Top Gun school?"

"Half a year ago you were a leader and the other pilots respected you," he said. "I’d even recommended you for promotion. Now get out of my office and prove I wasn’t wrong about you."

Late Sunday evening I was nursing a beer in the Officer’s Mess at the Miramar Naval Air Base. This was the place where the best met the best and I wondered what in hell I was doing there.

Some of the other pilots filtered in and I almost spilled my drink when a brown haired pilot passed in front of me. I thought I was seeing a ghost, for she was Karen’s double.

She looked at me and I could see barbs of hate glaring at me. I stood up. "My name is Scott."

"I know who you are," she said. "You’re the person who murdered my sister."

I felt the pain of the long gone blisters pulse through my fingers and into my heart. "I loved her."

"If you had loved her, you would have let her stay on the ground where she knew she was safe. She told me she wasn’t going to be frightened because you were the best. Well you aren’t the best…I am."

I tossed and turned on my bed, exhausted and dripping in sweat. I dreamed of Karen, feeling the tips of her fingers graze the golden wings above my breast pocket. Our fingers entwined and she led me to the balcony. The night sky was black and a galaxy of stars began winking at us. Of all the stars in the sky, how was it possible to find the one that was meant for me?

The scent of roses and her perfume surrounded me. Her hand was so delicate and her fingers were smooth as silk. I kissed the tips of her fingers, each tasting sweeter than the other did. My eyes closed and I drifted to the stars.

Then came the smoke. I couldn’t breathe in the thick cloud of death and I couldn’t wake up.

Karen’s sister sipped her coffee. "Not sleeping well these days?"

"Why do I get the feeling you don’t care how I sleep."

"Scott, you don’t know how happy I am that we’re going head to head today. I only wish we were using live ammo."

I had lost one love, but I realized that Karen wouldn’t have wanted me to lose both loves. "Last week when we first met, I felt sorry for myself; now I feel sorry for you. You have as much hate as Karen had love."

The afternoon sun glared into the canopy of my fighter. I flipped down my visor and banked into a sharp turn. This was the last day of school and Karen’s sister and I were about to duel for the title of being the best of the best. My call sign was Cobra and hers was Angel. I always thought angels were pure of heart and walked the path of righteousness. What a mistake that was.

Our radars were turned off and couldn’t be switched on until instructed by the official. Victory would be given to the pilot who achieved gun or missile lock within fifteen hundred feet.

I was at ten thousand feet, not knowing where Angel was. I hoped she was ahead and below me. Our training was the best in the world, but a little luck had won many a battle.

The official gave the order and I flashed up my radar. Angel’s orange dot on the screen was behind me and I pulled back on the stick and turned hard. She moved with me like I was pulling her on a string. She was good, but I didn’t want her hate to beat me.

I punched in the burners and rocketed straight up. Although she could see me on her radar, I was hoping the glare from the sun would momentarily distract her. This was a game of cat and mouse and I suddenly had a craving for a hunk of cheese.

Angel followed me up towards the stars and she matched each of my rolls and spins. She was one heck of a pilot.

The radio crackled. "You’re mine, Cobra."

Angel was closing fast. My only chance was to engage the air brakes and hope she didn’t have time to react. I wanted her closer, praying she wouldn’t get lock on. I counted… three… two… one and activated the brakes. My chest pressed into the harness as my speed decreased, but instead of shooting past me, her canopy hit along the underside of my wing.

My controls were loose and my right wing flap was damaged. Emergency lights blinked and my gauges indicated things I didn’t want to see.

I felt calm, just a normal day at the office. "Angel, I’m losing hydraulic pressure and fuel."

"What the hell did you try and pull, Cobra? You could’ve gotten us both killed."

I could feel heat underneath my seat and the odor of smoke drifted through my mask.

"The skin is buckled on your wing. It doesn’t look good."

The runway was approaching and I flicked the switch to lower the gear. The nose and left wheel lowered but the right wheel was still up. I started coughing as more smoke billowed into the cockpit.

Karen’s voice drifted into my ear. Bail out, darling.

I felt her hands guide mine to the ejection handles and pull them up. The explosion shot me out of the smoke filled bird and I watched as it flamed into the ground.

I knew the pain would never go away, nor would I want it to. As I floated to the ground, some of the demons left me and I knew that Karen would always be the best of the best.