Plane Crash

Passengers begin to accumulate in front of my office. They already know a plane has crashed, they already know there are many people dead.

Words from immaculately dressed and made up female executive:

-I have to reach my destination tonight. You don’t understand, this is not a holiday, I’m travelling on business. I want from you a written guarantee that I will reach my destination on time. I don’t care what happened. I have a contract.

Words from a middle aged woman:

- My hotel is booked for tonight. I will lose my money. It is not my fault if an inept pilot has crashed a plane. I want my money back.

Words from a man and his wife, both in their thirties:

- But how long are they going to take to clear the fucking corpses from the runway?

What will happen to my connecting flight? Why don’t you sweep everything from the runway with a machine or so? My flight was carefully planned and I don’t care what happened, that’s not my problem.

There were two exceptions to the nightmarish questioning.

A Jewish couple on their way back to Tel Aviv. They didn’t understand what was going on. I told them. The wife, with tears in her eyes, prayed for the poor people who were in that plane.

A very young man and his girlfriend, who asked if they could do something to help us, even if that meant to go away from the airport and lose their tickets and their money.

I clung to them as someone who’s dying of thirst would cling to a bottle of cold, fresh  water.

Menachem and Yael W,  David C and girlfriend. The only ones who brought a little warmth into our world. The only truly human beings among thousands of cattle. Thank you.