All The Way Around

All the Way Around

It was cold. Freezing, in fact. Ice was all over the small plane. The pilot couldn't see a thing through the windshield. He was flying on faith now. It was quiet. Serene. Peaceful.
"Am I....dead?" He thought out loud.
"No."
He heard a voice. He actually heard it!
"God? Is that you?"
Silence....Nothing, of course. Every time he spoke to God, it went silent. Every time he asked God a question and thought that he had gotten a response, nothing happened after that. God always goes silent for some reason!
The gauges on the panel started to go haywire as if it was a scene out of a Twilight Zone episode. The small plane rumbled and shook violently.
"This is it!" He yelled, "We're going down! Brace for impact!"
He always spoke that way, as if he wasn't alone. He had lost all human contact 2 days ago. Just...gone in a blip.  One minute he was making witty banter with Amelia back at headquarters, and the next minute....nothing. Just like God.
"They all abandon me", he thought, "all of them!"
His mind drifted back to his childhood. 8 years old. He had asked his dad if he could go with him. They were just having a great conversation. Laughing, joking, talking. He heard his mom yell something, then his dad just got up off the couch, and left. He could still see the condensation dripping down the glass. Dad didn't even finish his drink, for crying out loud!
The rumbling got worse. Something flew off one of the wings of the plane. He could barely see through the frozen glass, but he knew he saw something break off. The plane was disintegrating.
"Let's go!" He yelled, "Take me already! Get it over with!"
"No."
He heard it again. More distinct that time.
"God?"
He didn't know why he asked. It was just reflex. But he was a 'question person'. He remembered his last day at HB Wilson Elementary school when he had gotten transferred to another school across town for the academically talented class. His principal said, "Keep asking those questions!"
Well how come nobody ever answered? What about the ANSWERS?  He needed to know! What's out there? What is in the world? Who made this place? Where is God? Why is everything a big mystery? What the hell is going on?
All of a sudden, his head felt funny like he was upside down. The plane stopped shuddering. He was coasting. His hand was only loosely guiding the steering wheel. It was as if the plane, or maybe God, had taken over. He still couldn't see. What if he never saw anything again? Would all of this be for nothing? What if there was nothing more to see? He didn't care. He had come too far to turn back. 4 days of flight, nonstop, in the air. He had prepared for this. He had trained himself to survive on very minimal amounts of food, almost nothing. Ever since he had learned about breatharianism he had been in training to do away with food altogether, so food was no object. In fact, it wasn't even a thought.
His only thought was, "What is out there? I must know!"
All sense of time was lost now. The hands of his watch were spinning furiously. How long had he been upside down? One hour? Twelve hours? Twelve minutes? It felt like Twelve days. Yes, twelve days. It had to be!
"No."
There it was again! "Dammit!" He cursed aloud, "Dammit to hell! What is the POINT?"
He couldn't feel his fingers. They were swollen. His gloves literally had icicles dangling off of them. His eyebrows and lashes were covered in a snowy ice mixture. His coat was as hard as a cinder block. His teeth refused to stop chattering. The only reason he knew that he wasn't dead was because he could feel his heart pounding. It was beating so vigorously that his cinder block coat was throbbing to the beat. When he touched the pants of his jumpsuit a large block of ice went crashing to the floor and shattered. How was the plane still in the air? Or was it? He no longer felt movement and he was definitely upside down. When he breathed his breath was so thick that it looked more like smoke than breath. Thick, bluish-black smoke.
"I gotta get out of here", he forced himself to say.
"No."
"Sh-sh-sh-ssshhhut uppp", he barely yelled, "I'm not asking for permission! I'm- I'm....."
Before he could finish his tantrum, he suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of calm. He felt himself straightening out, as if the plane was leveling off. The upside down feeling was subsiding. He squinted, but still couldn't make out anything straight ahead. He struggled his head to the right...ice. He barely got his head to turn left....a crack. There was a crack in the glass. Or was that a crack in the ice? He couldn't tell, but he couldn't look away. He stared. The spinning gauges slowed down. His watch was was still spinning, but slowly. The hands on his watch settled upon 12:00. The sun! It had to be the sun because things just got brighter!
The crack in the window started to grow. It spread clear across the widow, lengthwise, from front to back, rapidly. Then, *Thunk! A large block of ice had fallen from the window. He could see! Green. All green everywhere.
"Wh-where am I? Is this......is this heaven?"
"No."
He was still in the air.
"Wha...how....how is this possible? Did I make it? Did I just fly clear across Antarctica?"
He found himself waiting for an answer.
Silence.
Days later, maybe months, maybe years, some farmers came across a plane in a grassy field. There was no sign of a landing. No tire tracks. The grass was thick and as high as the plane all the way around it. As they approached, they could hear that the radio was on and working.
"Pilot! Pilot! Come in Pilot! Are you safe? Did you land? We heard your request to land. Are you still there? Come in. Over."
The farmers approached slowly, cautiously. When they reached the cockpit they opened the door and were astounded by what they saw.
Both farmers immediately dropped to their knees. One farmer simply said, "Jesus".
"Yes".