It’s one of the staff women who breaks the oppressive silence. “For heaven’s sake, what is that?”
Only after a few seconds one of the technicians speaks again. “Unfortunately, we have no other snapshots. It might be just a bias due to poor image quality, although the rest of the elements of the picture appears correctly proportioned.”
“I don’t take it”, adds another agent. “Those dark spots on the walls seem like splashes of blood, people seem terrified beyond words, that seat seems ripped… I would say that a bomb explosion occurred in there, but there are no signs of depressurization.”
The fuck Ebola!, Thompson thinks to himself.
“Janet, get me in touch with Ironside, right now please.”
ALGERIAN DESERT
The boy nods, almost unable to take his eyes off the hypnotic stare of his older brother.
All these stories about the desert that kills…
They want to challenge me, definitely…
I have to show them that I’m no longer a child…
Suddenly, the braying of a donkey draws their attention. They turn their head in unison, becoming aware of a sound never heard before, a noise between a resounding thunder and a whistle, whose intensity is growing, plus a hissing sound, which is also getting louder. A dog starts barking, soon echoed by the verses of donkeys, dromedaries, other dogs, and finally some women.
Yidir rushes out. Ahmed takes a few moments to sheathe the knife he has just received, then he takes his targui and follows his brother, along a tiny path that leads to a raised area in the center of the village.
The scorching sun, still high above the horizon, is blinding. Ahmed follows the gaze of other people looking up. The boy shields his eyes, until he sees it.
There is something in the sky, it’s big and he has never seen anything like that. Not so close, anyway.
Its shape resembles that of a bird, but it’s completely white, glistening. It doesn’t flap its wings, and has a row of dark eyes running along the sides. The muzzle is black and rounded but doesn’t seem to have a mouth, and the tail is split into three parts.
Ahmed hastens to join his brother, while the unusual volatile flies in the sky over their heads.
The boy has already seen airplanes before, but they were nothing more than small dots of light in the night sky. During the day they were often followed by a long white trail. “Yidir, is that a plane?”, asks Ahmed, full of unconscious excitement.
His brother doesn’t reply, his look is a mixture of surprise and fear. He realizes that something isn’t going as it should. No airplane has ever been so close to the ground or has ever flown so low, and the inclination seems to be completely wrong.
It’s plummeting…
Two smaller planes run in the sky, staying at a higher altitude than the other one and starting a long circular loop, then they come back drawing invisible circles in the blue.
“Yidir, that’s one of the planes that we always see, the ones that fly high in the sky?”
His brother nods slowly, without saying a word.
“Why is it so low? It is coming down, look!”
Only then Ahmed realizes the astonished looks of those present, the litany of sorrow sung by some of the older women that start pulling their hair in panic.
“Shut up Ahmed!”, Yidir answers abruptly.
The boy turns to look thunderstruck and he is about to reply something when his brother adds: “For God’s sake, can’t you see that it’s plummeting?!?”
Nobody speaks in the following moments. They all look at the airplane passing a few hundred meters above their heads, tilted to one side.
The huge flying monster flies over a long stretch of desert, getting lower and lower. For some moments it disappears over the crest of a high sand dune on the horizon. In the same point where, seconds later, a huge fireball rises into the sky, drawing a thick column of black smoke with swirling flames.
A sound like a distant thunder reaches the village in less than a minute, echoed by the cries of women and the noises of the terrified animals. A threatening rumble, far away.
An uncertain and oppressive feeling falls on the village.
Ahmed stares at the silent desert, so familiar until few minutes ago, as if seeing it for his first time. Then he turns to his brother, but he is no longer at his side. Yidir moved away, with two other men. They discuss with each other, while they make gestures toward the point where the plane has just fallen. One of the three men splits, moving rapidly towards the area where the dromedaries are tied, joining other people who try to restore order.
Ahmed hastens for his hut to better accommodate his targui and fixes firmly the ties that bind his new knife to his left arm. He makes sure that the blade is not visible under the sleeve of his suit before going out. The wool fabric is essential to insulate his body and to allow him to survive the heat of the sun and the cold of the icy Saharan nights.
His brother has just left with Abdel and Wahid, his most trusted friends, heading for the place where the plane crashed.
There may be injured people, survivors that needs immediate help. You won’t come, Ahmed. It’s not going to be a pretty sight…
These are the last words that his brother Yidir told him, before leaving. But Ahmed refuses to accept them, he is a man now, he must deal with his responsibilities.
Determined not to get too far back, Ahmed waits just long enough so that the group of rescuers reaches some distance from the village.
He then quickly makes a dromedary kneel so that he can climb on its back, then he makes it get up again, and starts at a steady pace out of the village.
The men who precede him, including his brother, seem like tiny dots that swing like a mirage in the warm atmosphere of the desert. Shortly thereafter they disappear over the dunes.
The three men hasten to reach the disaster area, they know that every single moment is extremely precious. In the silence of their pace they don’t seem aware to be followed. Not until a dog, the friend of Ahmed, surpasses them, running forward, to stop on top of a sand dune. The animal turns back to the group of men, barking.
Yidir turns, watching the solitary dromedary about a hundred meters behind them, ridden by the boy.
“Don’t pretend not to have seen him before… Your brother Ahmed left the village shortly after us”, exclaims the man to his right.
“I know, Wahid… I know”, is the worried reply of Yidir.
“He’s a man now, Yidir”, adds Abdel with a singsong voice. “It’s time for him to start living and acting like that.”
The face of Yidir, covered with a thick linen bandage, draws a grimace of concern, as if the idea didn’t sound good at all to him. He urges his dromedary to move faster, leaving the others a couple of meters back. “Just pretend you haven’t seen him yet, so he will stay back and we will be able to do something if we find some danger ahead. Keep your eyes and ears twice wide open.”