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Coconut Trees
by Anton M.
Chapter 2: Introductions
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An overhead compartment collapsed on the left. Wind whistled. Elizabeth removed her mask and lifted her head. Thick, white snow formed a wall three rows ahead of her where the front of the plane had been. The sight felt surreal. A few murmurs could be heard as she unbuckled her seatbelt.
"Darcy?"
He groaned. Elizabeth brushed snow from his back and leaned closer to his head. "Are you okay?"
His knee was bleeding heavily. She checked his pulse.
"Yes." His mask fogged before a fit of coughing struck him and he tore off the plastic. Overwhelmed, Elizabeth wrapped her arms around him and hid her nose against his neck. In spite of his heavy breathing, Darcy returned her hug just as fiercely. She hadn't felt his arms around her for two years, and he smelled like home.
"You're hurt," she whispered.
"Shallow wounds," he replied. "These seats are made for midgets."
Elizabeth stifled a smile and pulled back, running her palm over his jaw. He brushed his blood-stained hands over her face. She had missed the hungry, tender gaze he gave her, raw and unfiltered in the dim light.
"Are you hurt?"
His eyes were glassy and voice hoarse.
"I'm okay," Elizabeth said, distracted by the ginger-haired man who was stuffing a blanket into an open window. The whistle of the wind wound down.
Elizabeth stared at the unreal scene unravelling in front of her. She'd been afraid of plane crashes for so long that now that it happened, she felt detached from the whole situation. The talking, crying and whispering felt as if someone had muted the radio. It was surreal.
"If I determine how many people are injured, will you help me help them?"
Darcy unbuckled his seatbelt. "I'll come with you."
"No, you're—"
"Bloody hell." Darcy groaned as he held himself up, but Elizabeth made him sit before showing light with her phone. The side of his head was bleeding.
"You might have a concussion. Do you have a first-aid kit?"
"I always do."
"Doctor! Is there a doctor here? We need a doctor!"
A similar shout could be heard from other corners. Several people had stood up. Phones lit up corners. The man who'd stuffed the window was emptying the overhead compartments, probably to make sure another wouldn't collapse. Two children were wailing next to the body of their mother. A teenage boy hugged them. A man lay unconscious or dead on the aisle with his leg almost cut off. People were starting to stand, observing the damage with their phones, and Elizabeth counted more than ten people lying down, injured or dead. She felt like she was witnessing a scene from a movie.
"Is wrapping a belt around a limb to stop bleeding still practiced?"
"Not always recommended, but it works. Why?"
"I need your belt."
Silently and without question, Darcy removed his belt, and Elizabeth gave it to an elderly woman who stared at the horror around her.
"I need your help, ma'am."
The woman raised her eyes. "My-my help?"
"Yes. See that man over there, with his leg almost torn off? Go and check his pulse. If he has one, I want you to tie this belt around his thigh as tightly as you can."
"Che-check his pulse?"
"Yes, ma'am, and tie this around his thigh. You might save his life."
The woman made eye contact with Elizabeth when she detected a pulse, and the man who'd helped Elizabeth with her luggage went to aid her. Elizabeth felt Darcy's eyes on her when she opened his impeccably packed luggage, unzipped his first-aid kit, and started cleaning his head wound.
"All right!" Elizabeth shouted, gaining everyone's attention. "Listen up, everyone! We have a doctor among us, but he has a possible concussion and is very ill, so I need you all to be patient, okay? Is there anyone here who has a first-aid kit in their carry-on or knows of anyone else having one?"
The Chinese boy who sat with his brother and sister raised his hand. "I think—I think our mum had one."
"Can anyone help him find it?"
"I have—vodka." An overweight, middle-aged man zipped open his luggage and delivered tiny bottles of liquor.
"Great. The plane should also have an emergency kit. Everything you find, I want you to bring to the seat next to Doctor Darcy over here. Does anyone object to this?" Nods and murmurs of agreement could be heard. "Everyone who is uninjured, please help others. Try to use disinfectants sparingly."
Elizabeth turned to the girl who'd sat beside her. "Miss—you with brown hair and a braid, what is your name?"
"Kitty."
"That's a beautiful name. How is your math, Kitty?"
She raised her chin even though her eyes were shimmering with tears. "I'm on top of my class, Miss."
"You should be proud," Elizabeth said. "Could you do me a favour, Kitty? Could you count everyone you see who is okay, and then the injured? There's some paper and a pen in my handbag, if you want."
She wiped her nose and cheeks against her shoulder, but said, "I can do that."
A lady approached Darcy, speaking Russian, and the only word Elizabeth caught was 'doctor'.
"He'll be with you in a moment, Ma'am. I promise."
An elderly man started to unzip suitcases and throwing clean, dry clothes at people who were shivering too violently to focus on anything else. Those on the front seats were wet from melting snow. Some people were crying, most were frantic to get warm, and a few had started filling the instructions Elizabeth had given. Meanwhile, Elizabeth disinfected the wound on the side of Darcy's head before cutting open his pants to get to his knee. He told her what to do, and when she was finished, he slid his cold palm against her neck and stared at her.
"Elizabeth."
"Are you dizzy? Hurt? Do you need to lie down?"
"Elizabeth," he repeated, stroking her neck and leaning forward, resting his forehead against hers. "I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault you're injured."
"No." He scowled, squeezing her hand. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for—before, for insulting you and, for everything that transpired between us." Darcy pursed his lips. His hoarse voice was quieter than before. "Can you forgive me?"
"I already have."
"Oy, loverboy! If you're well enough to snuggle with your lady, you're well enough to take care of my girlfriend. She has a fucking wire through her shoulder."
Elizabeth squeezed Darcy's thigh. "Are you up for this?"
Grimacing, Darcy stood up but shut his eyes. "I have to be."
Were it not for his profession then his size alone would've made people trust his words. Elizabeth let him lean on her when he started to limp to the woman who'd asked for their help.
"Miss! Miss!"
Kitty appeared, asking for how old they were before she scribbled down the numbers and handed Elizabeth her paper. "I asked some people to write their own name because… they weren't English. The people who are okay to stand and talk are in green, people who can talk but are injured are in orange, and I—" She hesitated. "I didn't want to touch anyone who wasn't responding, so in red are the people who are unconscious or, or, dead."
Kitty, 13 (green)
Doctor Darcy, 32 (green)
Elizabeth, 24 (green)
Aнна Pостовцева, 58 (green) (Anna Rostovtseva)
Евгений Ростовцев, 38 (red) (Yevgeni Rostovtsev)
William Collins, 27 (orange)
A man in a blue coat, ? (red)
Two girls beside him, ? (red, red)
Li Na, 35 (green)
George Wickham, 33 (green)
Zhang Min, ? (red)
Zhang Lei, 15 (green)
Zhang Juan, 3 (green)
Zhang Yong, 7 (orange)
Fatemeh Turani, 63 (green)
Man with his leg cut off, ? (red)
An old man beside him, ? (red)
A woman with pink hair, ? (red)
Charlotte Lucas, 43 (orange)
Orri Rúnarsson, 41 (green)
Boy in a red sweater, ? (red)
Two small girls in striped coats, ? (red, red)
Mary Gardiner, 59 (green)
A woman with a pixie cut, ? (red)
An old man with a brown hat, ? (red)
Stewardess in blue, ? (red)
A man with a silver watch, ? (red)
Roger McKinnon, 53 (green)
Lydia Smith, 25 (orange)
"This is invaluable, Kitty. Sharp thinking. Thank you."
She blushed under Elizabeth's praise, and wrapped the blanket tighter around herself. "I want to help, please. I don't like blood, but if I have to sit down and think I will go crazy."
"Kitty, was it?" Darcy asked, and, nodding, the girl blushed deeper. "It would be very useful if you could go through everyone's luggage, one by one, ask people's permission if you must, and gather all bottles of medicine and pills that are not prescribed to their owners. Don't pay attention to what they are, I'll take care of that. Do you think you can do that for me?"
"I can do that."
Darcy shook from a fit of coughing, and a sheen of sweat had already covered his forehead. A Chinese woman rushed to them and held out a surgical mask, motioning at his face. Darcy covered his face with the mask without a comment. He started to palpate an unconscious man, and Elizabeth started filling his instructions. The man groaned. Finally, Darcy stood up and leaned against a seat. The woman, presumably the man's mother, stared at Darcy, wide-eyed. Knowing that she wouldn't understand much, Darcy sighed and shook his head. Speaking more to Elizabeth than to the lady, he said,
"He's unlikely to survive the night. Even if he does, he'll probably be paralysed from the neck down."
Elizabeth wasn't sure how much the woman understood, but her eyes shimmered with tears.
"I'm sorry," Darcy said, squeezing the woman's shoulder before he continued to examine people. Disoriented and sick, he struggled to keep himself alert as he stitched up wounds and performed minor surgeries. He spoke mostly in monosyllables. He made pressure bandages out of T-shirts and told people how to take care of their wounds and broken limbs.
The woman named Charlotte sat, fully alert in spite of the wire that pierced her shoulder, waiting. Darcy wiped his face with his hand.
"I need to cut off your shirt."
"Are you kidding me? It's below freezing in here!" her boyfriend argued.
"Sir, I boarded the flight with a 39-degree fever. I have pneumonia. If you prefer I leave you all to die so that I can sleep and perhaps never wake up, by all means, leave me in peace. But if you want me to help your girlfriend with no stethoscope in sight, I suggest you shut up and do as I say."
Darcy, coughing, squeezed Charlotte's forearm.
"I must do this to listen to your lungs, and we cannot risk moving the wire."
"I understand," Charlotte said, quiet but determined, and Elizabeth cut off her shirt and showed the light as Darcy started to palpate her ribs, murmuring words like vibrations and resonance without expecting an answer.
"Does it hurt to breathe?"
"No," Charlotte said, wrapping arms around her stomach from the cold. "Should it?"
"No," Darcy said. "That's good news. But I'm not going to remove the wire."
"What?! Are you kidding me? How is she supposed to sleep or walk around or do anything—"
Darcy stood up, swaying slightly before he caught hold of the seats and straightened himself to his full height. He removed his mask.
"I understand that we are all under a tremendous amount of stress," he said, raising his voice to the best of his ability. "But I am not here to give you the answers you want. I am not God. I am not MacGyver, and I couldn't care less if you kill yourselves in your attempt to defy me. All I am doing is offering you my professional opinion. That is all. I don't care if you sue me in a month, I don't care if you hate me, and I don't care if you don't listen to my advice. But I refuse to kill you or your loved ones just because you think that action is superior to inaction. That is not always the case."
Worried eyes followed his body as he slumped against a seat. He pressed both palms against his eyes and rested his head against the seat. Cold sweat and violent shivers had covered his body for a while. Elizabeth rushed to his side and laid blankets and a coat on top of him before taking a thermometer from one of the first-aid kits.
"Oh, my God," a man said, voice high and trembling. "We're going to die. We're all going to freeze to death. Mountain lions will eat us for dinner and—"
Kitty slapped the man before staring at her hand and blushing furiously. "I'm sorry. He was freaking me out."
An elderly, dark-skinned man smiled at her before coming to sit behind Darcy and Elizabeth. "I think we should have a meeting."
People gathered around the aisle where Darcy sat, and Elizabeth did her best to assess the situation. Five rows of seats had survived the crash, each with 9 seats in them, so hypothetically, 45 people should've survived. That was not the case. The two front rows currently visible were devoid of not only people but seats. The side of the plane was cracked on their left but snow must've covered the outside because no wind got in. The floor had three cracks in it.
Darcy, surprisingly, opened his blankets for Elizabeth. The tense situation had forced a temporary truce upon them, or he wouldn't have been so kind to her, but Elizabeth couldn't resist sitting in his lap to share her warmth. He wrapped blankets around them while Elizabeth held the list of people Kitty had made.
"Did anyone check on the people who are unconscious or dead? Did any of them have a pulse?" Elizabeth asked.
"Two did, but… given what your husband looks like, I think we should be patient with them," Charlotte's ginger-haired boyfriend, Orri, said. He looked mildly embarrassed.
Elizabeth wasn't about to clarify his statement. If they were to spend a lot of time in close proximity, she had no intention to make herself available for advances by any strangers.
"What happened?" Kitty asked, rubbing her shins as she sat, curled up in a seat. "One moment, we were flying just fine, and the next… I thought…"
"Do you think it was a terrorist attack?" Orri asked.
"No, it was something with the engine," the Chinese boy Lei answered.
"But the voice wasn't the captain's, when he said to be prepared for impact," Kitty said.
"Yes, it was," Lei replied. "Do you sound like yourself when you know you're about to die?"
"It doesn't matter," Darcy said. "Unless any of you is willing to step forward and say they caused the crash, it's the least of our worries."
He rested his head against the seat and shut his eyes.
"He's right," Charlotte said. She sat a bit awkwardly, but seemed otherwise unaffected by the wire that went through her shoulder, covered on both sides with bandages. "Does anyone have cell phone reception?"
"I've got nothing," Kitty answered. "Anyone else?"
"Nothing."
"No service."
"Is anyone here working in engineering, computers, IT, programming?"
Faces fell when nobody reacted. If it were possible to do anything with phones to let anyone know where we were without reception, it would be programmers and tech-savvy people. Without that knowledge, they were blind.
"Any clue as to where we could be?"
"The captain said that we'll go past a storm before Alaska, so maybe there?"
"Maybe," Orri answered, "unless it was a technical problem."
"No, we can't be in Alaska," Charlotte said. "An average plane would fly around 900 kilometres per hour, and we'd flown for 4 hours before we crashed. That means we flew a distance of around 3600 kilometres, which is not enough to take us to Alaska. I think we're in Russia."
"What if we're in North Korea?" Kitty asked, eyes wide.
"We're not," Charlotte said. "Even if the plane had been hijacked, North Korea is way too close to Beijing. We would've had to circle Korea or fly back and forth to remain on that latitude."
"Kamchatka," a woman said, joining the group. She asked for Charlotte's phone and zoomed in on a peninsula. "Da. Zdjess, mozhet byt." (Yes. Here, maybe.)
She didn't have the knowledge to argue, and Kitty's (or anyone else's, it seemed) GPS system didn't work without internet. There was no magic dot on the map.
"We should find a way out of the plane to see if anyone else survived," Kitty suggested.
"Net. Zdjess ochen kholodno. Oni mertvy." (No, it's very cold here. They're dead.)
"Does anyone speak Russian?" Elizabeth asked.
Nobody replied. If the Russian woman had valuable information for them, she would have to mime.
"We could try, but nothing can be seen from the windows," a man said. "It's past six o'clock, Beijing time, probably eight or nine wherever we are now. Even if the people in the front were lucky enough to survive, I think an hour or two in freezing snow, wearing the clothes they did, would be enough to kill them."
"It's dark, snowy, freezing, and few of us have proper winter clothes," Elizabeth concluded. "Should we try?"
"I'm willing, if anyone else is," Orri said.
"I can join," Elizabeth said.
"You're not going anywhere," Darcy said, voice gruff. He displayed a precious if rare moment of vulnerability as he rubbed Elizabeth's waist and sighed against her neck. "Please."
Elizabeth had to agree. Darcy's temperature was way too high (39.5) to leave him. How in the world he managed to help as many people as he did with a fever that high, she did not know.
A group of three agreed to leave the plane to find others, but Charlotte stopped them from leaving just yet.
"Before you guys go, can we introduce ourselves? We'll probably spend some time here, together. Name, country of origin, occupation? If we have trouble with stuff, it's good to know what our professions are. I can start. I'm Charlotte, from Toronto, and I'm an accountant."
"Orri, from Iceland but now living in Toronto with Charlotte. I'm a dental prosthesis technician."
"I'm Kitty, from Montreal, a student."
"Roger, 53, from Phoenix, Arizona, but spent most of my life in NYC. Hotel manager."
"William Collins." The short man who'd received a slap from Kitty now avoided everyone's eyes. "I'm a clergyman from Australia."
"Lei Zhang," the Chinese boy said, rocking his little sister on his knee. "I'm half-American, half-Chinese. I'm a freshman in high school. This is my sister Juan, and my brother Yong. They speak very little English."
Another woman of Asian descent spoke Mandarin to Lei, before the boy continued, "And this is Na, from Tianjin, China. She's a sales support clerk, and speaks no English."
It had been too dark before, but now that people only lit up their phones when they introduced themselves, she could see that the woman was pregnant, and not in her first trimester.
"Could you ask her when she's due?" Darcy asked.
"Due?"
"When does she expect the baby to be born?"
A conversation followed before Lei said, "She says she should have the baby in three weeks."
"Christ," the man who'd helped Elizabeth with her luggage, said. "She might deliver here. Okay. Okay, fine. I'm George Wickham, from London, UK. I'm in the army."
Darcy's head snapped up so fast that he bumped his head against Elizabeth's, and in spite of rubbing her skin to soothe the pain, he took her phone from her hands and shined the full light of it in George Wickham's face. He covered his eyes.
"Christ."
Darcy cleared his throat. "Ladies, be careful around this man."
"Christ, you're talking like I'm a sex fiend."
"Aren't you?"
George Wickham's smile faltered, but he said, "Don't mess with them, Darce, they might think you're serious."
Darcy's grip on Elizabeth's waist tightened.
"I'm Lydia, from LA. I'm an actress and part-time waitress."
"Mary Gardiner, from Manchester, England. I'm a pianist."
The woman behind Elizabeth straightened and lit up her phone. "Fatemeh, but you can call me Fate. I'm Persian, and I work in construction."
"Persian, my ass. Iranian, yeah?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Why, do you have a problem with that?"
"No, no problem," George Wickham replied.
"Anna. Ya uchitelnitsa." (Anna, I'm a teacher.)
"If she's a structural engineer or an IT genius and none of us understood that, we're screwed," Orri said. A few snickered.
"I'm Elizabeth, born and raised in Montreal but living in the UK. I'm a wedding photographer." She could feel Darcy's eyes on her and squeezed his forearm. "And this is Darcy, a doctor from Oxford, UK. If you don't mind, guys, I'd like to give him a bit of the floor space to let him stretch out and sleep off his illness."
Nobody objected.
"I have a suggestion, too," Darcy said, his chest rumbling as he spoke. "Our batteries will die if we keep using phone lights as generously as we have. I suggest we create a system so that we don't use up all battery lives within a single day."
Everyone agreed. A group went to collect and count all the food and water they had while another, Orri, Fate, and Lydia, got into layers of clothes. Elizabeth was emptying some unclaimed handbags to put them on the aisle under Darcy as the emergency door opened.
The freezing wind knocked them breathless. Painful, near-numbing prickling hurt Elizabeth's face and hands, and she rushed to the door. A blizzard howled. Lydia, who had hopped off the plane, was chest-deep in snow, but Fate and Orri pulled her out and shut the door. Red, breathless, shivering people made eye contact. Orri took off his hat.
"Well, I guess that answers that question."
Nobody suggested going outside for the rest of the night. A small group was calculating how much food and water they had, and an annoyed but unanimous agreement was made to start rationing food. Kitty walked around, giving everyone their share of supper, and Elizabeth felt the rush of adrenaline and fear starting to decrease. A few people mourned, a few chatted, and a few were going through anonymous luggage. She even heard laughter.
Elizabeth took off Darcy's tie and forced him into a woollen sweater she'd bought her mother for Christmas. She hadn't realised how much energy he'd put into helping others until she met his blurry eyes and complying body. She unscrewed and cut off some cushioning from a seat and turned it into a pillow, she made sure Darcy's feet were warm and pulled two pairs of woollen socks on top of his before putting his shoes back on. Finally, she made him drink water. Darcy could barely stand. Elizabeth pulled several pairs of regular socks on top of his hands.
Because so many people were dead, everyone got two blankets, and Roger gave Darcy another to wrap around his legs. If Elizabeth had let herself feel anything other than insane worry for Darcy, she might've cried in his arms from gratitude.
"Darcy," she whispered, ready to let him lie down on the floor. He hummed in reply. "When do you need to take more penicillin? Do you want codeine?"
"Both."
"Now?"
Darcy hummed, and Elizabeth helped him take his medicine before he lay down. Some others, also, were preparing to sleep, and Elizabeth took a few minutes to make sure that the children were okay. The Zhang children had reclined three seats, and the two youngest were already asleep against their brother. Kitty sat on a seat beside Darcy, watching him.
"Will he be okay? I'm scared for him."
"Me, too, but I'll warm him in a bit. Are you okay? Are you warm? Does it hurt anywhere?"
"I'm good. Is it okay if I sleep next to you guys on this seat? I know I'm not a baby anymore, but I don't know anyone else and I don't like the dark."
"Of course. Do you want to join us on the floor?"
"No, I don't like the floor."
"Just let me know if you need anything."
Elizabeth helped her recline her seat before she removed blankets from Darcy, lay down next to him, and covered them both with four blankets and both of their coats. She wasn't sure how okay he would've been with this arrangement had he been lucid, but she could take his anger once he was all right. But she couldn't lose him, not like this, not ever again.
A few phone screens lit up the ceiling from time to time. Footsteps echoed in Elizabeth's ears and conversations increased and decreased in volume as she rubbed the back of Darcy's neck. As time passed, fewer phones lit up the ceiling and even breaths replaced conversations. But some, like Elizabeth, were still up, pondering.
She pulled away when Darcy shifted, but he turned on his side and wrapped his arms around her. She felt warm and secure and precious. His chills scared her, but she would've been more afraid had he succumbed to his illness. Elizabeth wiped his forehead, pulled her sleeve to cover her fingers and curled an arm around his neck. He hummed, and she didn't need a stethoscope to hear his raspy breaths. She didn't know what she would do if she woke up in the morning and he hadn't made it, but she didn't want to find out, and so she listened to the wind, to Kitty's soft snoring and Darcy's heavy breathing. It was a long night.
