Bounty isn’t exactly the word I’d use to describe what we found rummaging through the luggage (me) and bodies (Paul) left on the plane. We found four candy bars, a pack of gum (the old-fashioned sugary kind), cough syrup, sleeping pills (Paul pocketed those), Tylenol, a lighter, some plastic garbage bags from the snack service (for keeping stuff dry), two empty plastic soda bottles (Paul says we’ll fill them with snow and our bodies will melt them into water over time), a first aid kit, lots of non-working cell phones, one Sawtooth Mountain coffee mug, a camping lantern, a pair of sunglasses for me. And a second sleeping bag, which I immediately recognize as the end of my very short-lived physical experience with the opposite sex.
I follow him back to the tail of the plane, the wind at our backs now, so we make good time. We stop outside. For the first time, the sky is clear enough to see the outside of our shelter. The tail of the plane remains intact. The little wing on the right side of the tail is jammed into the snow, and the left wing sticks out at a forty-five-degree angle. The rudder streaks toward the sky and looms tall over the ledge, like the top of a broken cross marking a wintry grave.
I look at the bathroom door-it’s tilted sideways in the middle of the exposed circle that once seamlessly attached to the main cabin. The metal surrounding it is distressed; I imagine it having a voice and screaming from the pain of being ruthlessly torn from its body. Crooked and slightly indented at the middle, the door represents the flimsy line of protection between the wilderness and us.
Paul pushes open the bathroom door and starts arranging all the stuff we found inside. I walk behind the tail of the plane and am hit by a toxic wall of spilled jet fuel. The snow is saturated with a bluish-green hue that streaks back from behind the plane. The winds, I think, must have pushed the fumes away from our cabin. I quickly cover my mouth and nose, but the stench is strong, and the combination of hunger and dehydration and the fumes overwhelms me. I begin to wobble, and Paul’s hand suddenly grabs my forearm.
“Whoa-you can’t inhale that stuff at all. It’ll kill you.”
“Sorry,” I mumble.
“That’s one of the reasons we can’t stay here. If the winds shift, we’ll be inhaling jet fuel all day and night.”
I nod, but I’m too weak to process the phrase “can’t stay here.” It rings in my mind, but I can’t quite bring myself to confront it or Paul.
Paul walks me back and opens the door.
“You first,” he says.
I step in, and Paul has organized things like a little nest for us. It makes my heart warm. He climbs in behind me, and it is snugger than before. He’s so big and the tail so tilted and cramped that all we can do is lean against the wall together, in a semi-lying-standing position.
We get settled in our bag and then Paul hands me the coffee mug filled with snow. We look at the rest of our loot, which I’ve laid out on the floor: basically candy bars, which I could eat by myself for one lunch, but that’s all we have and we’ll have to make it last.
“Hold up the mug,” he says.
He takes his tiny lantern, breaks the glass around the flame and lights it. It provides almost no heat, but Paul places the cup directly onto the flame and melts the snow.
“Why don’t we just eat the snow?”
“Like I said before, you’ll die. We’re already at risk for hypothermia. Eating snow will drop your body temperature even more. Eventually, we will use our bodies to melt the snow in these soda bottles, but we need water now. That’s more important than food by a long shot.”
We wait silently for a long time as snow turns to slush and slush to water. I sip the warm water as it crests to the top. It is heaven in the form of water. I’ve never tasted anything as sweet in my life. I look at Paul as he takes his first sip and I can tell he’s thinking the same thing I am, which is that I’ve never been truly thirsty before. I’ve never, by turn, ever appreciated how wonderful water is. I laugh, thinking there were days in the institution when I was so depressed that the thought of drinking or eating something depressed me more. That seems unimaginable to me now.
We wait for more to melt. It is agonizingly slow. But each warm mouthful feels like a cup of heaven in your mouth and throat. We look at each other, understanding that each sip is sacred, not to be taken for granted.
Then the light flickers for a few minutes and it dies. Fuck is all I can think. Paul’s face looks grave.
“How long?” I say, my eyes cast downward on our last cup of water.
“Who knows?”
“Best guess?”
“After the weather breaks, and not before then. I’d bet two to three weeks minimum.”
I think of all the news stories about crashed planes and can’t help but wonder about the black box and GPS.
“Shouldn’t they be able to find us with some kind of scanner or something?”
“Like on TV? It doesn’t work that way. We are in the mountains and it’s snowing. There’s probably three hundred miles between us and what we’d call civilization.”
“But still,” I respond. “They can find anything.”
“Last year, a twin engine crashed somewhere I reckon was not far from here with four passengers. In the summer. It took them almost a month to find the plane. I mean, they can probably say it’s around here, but ‘around here’ is under a blanket of snow, in fields of evergreens, and perched one hundred feet below the top of a remote mountain.”
After his speech, we sit in silence. I don’t know what to say or think. I want to believe that we will just be saved, but then I hear Paul’s voice and it sounds so clear and rational. He would know, right?
“And the people?” I ask.
“Pancaked on impact,” he says wryly. “We got a leg up on them there.”
Two weeks on four candy bars and a cup of melted water as long as the butane in the lantern lasts. I calculate and don’t like the odds.
“Can we make it?”
“Possibly, possibly not. Two weeks is a long time.”
“We’re a little protected here, but we’re too hidden; is that what you’re thinking? That this feels safe, but wouldn’t we be better off up there?” I ask, gesturing up the mountain.
“Yes, you’re right. But getting up there will be tough. Do you think you’re up for it? It’s a nasty climb.”
“I want to live,” I say weirdly. Oh my God, I must seem like a total freak to him. I look away and around our little room. He must sense my awkwardness because he squeezes my arm in friend-like way.
“I can see that.”
I nod, having been more honest with Paul than perhaps any person on earth. I think back on all my sessions with the Old Doctor, and I know I never told him that I out and out wanted to hit the switch. When I tried to do it before coming to the institution, I really wanted to succeed. I can see myself for a second, standing in the bathroom two nights ago, with destiny in my palm. I would never have hoped for a plane crash, and it saddens me more that others died, but I am so grateful for the second chance.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“About?”
“The head-you know, the jokes. It wasn’t funny. I didn’t think it was; I just didn’t know what else to do. I say stupid things when I’m nervous.”
I rub one of his hands and then just hold it. In my heart, I believe this is the real Paul. Underneath those man-made veneers is a boy with a big heart who is afraid to be who he is. But why? I wonder. This is going to be okay, I think. Everything is going to be okay.