- Berta and Mark are on a flight to start their retirement in the Bahamas after Berta was diagnosed with an unknown disease. During the flight, the plane experiences rapid decompression and Berta is sucked out of the hole. Mark manages to find a parachute and jumps after her. He finds Berta falling and tries to pull her to his parachute but struggles to maintain his grip as they near the ocean surface. The story is left on a cliffhanger as to whether they survive the plane crash or not.

1. WALKING IN THE CLOUDS
by
Eva Deasy
The night was fresh, lit by a spectacular multicolor stars falling over the immense
Niagara Falls, and as background the illuminated river.
Berta was freeze looking the fascinating scenario with the fireworks through the
transparent wall near to their table.
She was with her husband Mark, both in their thirties, in a luxury restaurant celebrating
the 4th of July, and her retirement as a reporter for an important magazine about science
and fiction. She looks great, wearing a black dress that contrasted with her blond hair.
Mark was a black beret for many years, but he made the decision to retire to be with
Berta after she had a diagnostic with an unknown disease. That changed their plans for
the future and their lives.
Mark noticed Berta tired and encouraged her to leave. The plan was to take the next day a
flight to start a new life in Bahamas. They didn’t know that trip will change everything in
their lives. They left with bad feeling but none said anything.
Now in their apartment Mark went to the kitchen to make coffee. The apartment was
empty, just a small mattress on the floor close to the fireplace. Berta sat on the mattress
pulled her briefcase, and took from it their wedding picture that she saved there. In the
picture they look very happy. The background was the ocean. She was like hypnotized
looking at it. Mark lay beside her, she put back the picture in her briefcase, and fell asleep
on Mark chest.
The next day Berta and Mark were sitting on first class in route to the first stop at Miami.
She was impeccable wearing a beautiful satin purple blouse with velvet black pants. The
pilot announced that the weather was in perfect conditions and the trip will be nice and
fast.
She looked through the window the heavy and white clouds imagining herself walking
and jumping on them. That will be the most wonderful experience that a human being
could experiment in the life. Since she was a girl that was her great dream, obviously was
just a fantasy. She felt asleep dreaming that she was floating in the air and walking on the
clouds.
At that moment the airplane passed through a low air pressure and began to vibrate
strongly. She woke up, and took Mark’s hand strong, almost squeezing it. Mark looked at
her to make her relax and confident that nothing bad will happen.
The flight attendant offered them something to drink, and immediately something shook
the airplane strongly. Mark and Berta looked behind them, and horrified they saw a big

2. hole at the end of the corridor. They didn’t know how that happened but was there. The
air masks felt down, everything was being sucked, people, seats out from the airplane.
Was a nightmare! Everything was happening in front of her so fast; she couldn’t even
think what they have to do.
The passenger behind them afraid to die opened the emergency door and the air
immediately sucked him out from the airplane. The air began to suck them too. Mark and
Berta were fighting for their lives, grabbing the seats in front of them. But the air was so
strong and sucked Berta out of the airplane. Mark was in shock; she just disappeared in
front of him. He walked zig zagging to the cockpit and found the pilots dead. He checked
around the pilots looking for a parachute and he found one under the captain’s seat.
He knew Berta had only three minutes before hit the ground. He put the parachute as
quickly as possible and when he was ready to jump something hit strong his head. Mark
ignoring it jumped in vertical position to fall faster with the hope to get Berta on time.
Berta was falling and her mind was running fast thinking if her fantasy to walk on clouds
will be true she will survive. She opened her arms to make the fall slower with the hope
that a miracle could happen. She remembered that she wrote an article about airplanes
accidents. She knew was possible to survive a high fall but the percentage was less than
one percent. She wished to be in that one percent.
She had less than three minutes to hit the ground. She began to feel strange and got
unconscious, everything turned black. She got up terrified, realizing she was closer and
closer to death. She didn’t know how long unconscious she was, but had to be less than a
minute.
Mark couldn’t see Berta, the clouds were dense, and finally he saw her. He was confident
he will save their lives. He did that tons of time when he was in the army.
Berta closed her eyes and the only thing that she could see was a fire red color changing
to yellow. She opened her eyes and saw an incredible view of the ocean with a silver
color, the waves hitting big rocks leaving dense and celestial white foam like clouds.
Every second was like a film in zoom, she was looking more and more details but she
didn’t have a remote control to stop the picture and freeze it.
The wind hit her face strongly. She started to think in Mark, where he was, if he survived,
in how much she loves him. She remembered one vacation skiing in the snow that was
so white like the clouds and the waves foam.
What irony, she had an unknown disease with a short life expectation, and now she was
falling straight to her death. Berta began to wish to have a heart attack so she never will
feel the hit on the ground. She was not a coward, she only wanted to dull her pain. She
knew water is like rock when you fall straight into it.

3. A bunch of birds were coming from the right side, she saw them, and worried to crash
with them she tried to cover her face but that was impossible because the wind was very
strong. In a less than a fraction of second the birds crashed on her. Her face had scratches,
on her mouth feathers, blood from the birds on her body; was disgusting.
She looked again the silver water getting closer. She remembered their wedding picture.
The ocean as a background in the picture was incredibly beautiful, but now was
incredibly dangerous.
Were about five thousands feet over the ground when she felt something grabbed her
arms pulling her up fast. She heard Mark’s voice.
- "I'm here!" Mark said.
He tried to grab her waist to open the parachute safely, but he couldn't. He opened his
parachute pulling both them higher in the sky. Everything was in slow motion. Now they
are falling down again slowly. The water was closer and closer. Berta closed her eyes
screaming loud and nervously tried to grab Mark arms. A dusty wind blinded her eyes.
The wind got stronger.
- “Don’t look down” Mark said.
Mark won’t to see Berta more scare that she already was. He was trying hard to pull her.
Berta was panicky, she couldn’t breath. She started to fight for her life pulling
unconsciously the belt of the parachute.
- "Berta, don't!"
- "We gonna die!" she said.
Mark was holding her arms but her satin blouse slipped through his arms. He could not
get a good grip. Every second he was loosing her, slipped. If he lost her he knew she
never will survive the fall.
Berta was horrified and Mark distressed. He was losing her; he tried to grabs her hands.
He was anguished thinking they had only a minute. She was swaying and Mark was
helplessly. Both were looking the vast ocean getting closer. The silver color began to
change to dark blue, and she was screaming but the wind carried her voice.
He was sweating and his hands got wet when he lost her and horrified saw Berta falling,
and falling, and falling! He knew she had only twenty seconds to hit the rocks and she
was going straight to them. Only a strong wind could help her and change her fall to the
water, to the hard water.
For Berta the ocean started to change the color to light blue, and she could see corals reef,
a big ray. Everything stopped for seconds when she felt her strong crash on the water.

4. Mark saw her splashed when she hit the ocean leaving foam and waves around her. He
was really scary for the first time in his life.
She wasn’t feeling her body, an absolute dark covered her. The sun hit her eyes and she
opened it. She was alive! She desperate started looking for Mark.
As that moment she saw a boat coming that stopped close to her. In the boat was a couple
who saw the fall. Berta didn’t give to the young man the opportunity to help her to get in
the boat; she did by herself screaming that they had to find her husband.
The young woman was screaming. They were looking a body, floating on the water.
Berta tears ran fast thinking the worse. She is trying to see if was Mark’s body, when she
felt a hand on her shoulder, she turned and was Mark! Alive! She looked his warm eyes,
and began to cry. He hugged her strongly protecting her.
Berta was confused, still thinking about the body on the water. Probably was another
body from the airplane crash. She walked to the edge of the boat side and saw the body
that the couple rescued but she couldn't recognize who was. She walked to get closer to
see the dead body, but she found was her own body, dead!
Berta was in shock.
Mark took her hand, and kissed her. She closed her eyes slowly and opened again to
know if that was true or just a nightmare and all will come back to normal. Everything
turned quiet, cold. Light clouds started to cover all around them. Mark holds her cold
hands.
Mark told her - “Come with me, now we can walk together on the clouds like you always
dream”.
Suddenly Mark woke her up.
Mark at Berta - “Hey, Berta wake up, we are already in Miami.”
She woke up desperate, sweating, but happy since everything was just a nightmare.
One hour later finally they were in the airplane flying to Bahamas.
From a TV on the screen a reporter: “Braking news, an airplane crash flying between
Miami and the Bahamas, nobody survived”