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Exits Clearly Marked

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I wake to find my face stuck like gum to the rubber side of the orange dingy.  I try to swallow but my mouth is crusted with sand and my throat refuses to close again.  My head throbs in the violent white sunlight. 

The others are gaping at a flat blue plate of sea.   There is no sign of the plane, the wing no longer jutting out of the water like the massive pectoral fin of a whale.  The sea has closed over it; a blue flat skin.  Only black shreds of debris, like the wind-blown ashes after a fire. 

I glance at the talkative American woman from the aisle seat, but the crash has knocked the words from her.  Her other bothersome habit of pushing her sunglasses onto her nose to peek at me over them in a sassy Oprah-talk-show-kind-of-way, is now impossible: her glasses float in the water, some distance from the boat. She could swim to them, I suppose. But I imagine she has considered this and wondered, as we all might wonder, if we would let her back on the boat again.  I steal a glance at the bright yellow Dry Bag, firmly clipped shut, which contains some crackers and pieces of watermelon. And I believe, one large bottle of water.   

There are six people on this boat including me.  That is: two men, one boy of twelve, and three women.  There is no radio. We established hours ago that no one has a mobile phone which will work, out here.  In that shadowy nightmare of tracing the lights which appeared to guide us to the inflated slide, ballooning suddenly in front of us, like a giant swollen tongue; only Trudy, the tiny stewardess with the Dolly Parton accent, flouted the rules and returned for her handbag.  Now, in it, she has found lip-balm. She offers it round the boat, without speaking. We solemnly apply the coconut flavoured stick to our scorched lips and pass it along.  

I’m sure I’m not the only one who wonders for a moment whether to eat it.

Page 1

Details

Started by
Jill Dawson
24/03/2006 17:08:00

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Summary of the story so far

Current page by
Jill Dawson
24/03/2006 17:08:00

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Summary of Exits Clearly Marked	Close
This story was started by Whitbread and Orange Prize nominated author Jill Dawson. Read about Jill on her author profile page. The story so far...A passenger aircraft travelling from Madrid to London crashes into the sea off-course from its intended route. A small band of survivors huddle on a dingy in shock and unsure of exactly where they are or if they will be rescued. Fortunately a fishing boat is spotted in the distance and comes to their aid. Aboard are three men who, despite speaking a foreign language, provide the survivors with food and shelter. After a nervous few days on the boat, during which time the group endure a storm and the uncertainity of knowing their future, the men guide the boat to land. On their arrival the lead character, Raman - born in India but now living in New York - learns one of his travelling companions has mysteriously gone missing.


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