Dripping

The temperature had risen a lot in the past day. Somehow the sun was hitting harder than usual and the ice was starting to soften and melt. The creaking was growing louder, and it sounded like the plane was starting to move from its jagged perch on the ridge of the glacier.

We were supposed to wait for a rescue team and hang tight in the plane, but it seemed like that was becoming a worse and worse idea as conditions changed. There had been a long argument last night that it would be safer to leave the plane and build a shelter in the snow, but the pilot kept repeating that none of us had enough experience to navigate a glacier.

Now, twelve hours later, the mood had changed. The plane was going to slide at any time, and we were of the same mind: get out before it slid and dashed us to pieces on the plateau below us.

We were trailing out in a long line when I started to hear a dripping sound. I was one of the last ones out, and I stepped to the side and paused, my head cocked up to one side. What was dripping?

The sound was at eye level, not ten feet away from me. It couldn’t be snow or ice; the plane was well above that, and there hadn’t been any time for buildup. The only thing above me in that direction was the wing of the plane, canted up into the air. Then I smelled it, realizing too late what was dripping from the wings: jet fuel.

It only takes a single spark to ignite something volatile. Jet fuel is very volatile, and the static built up by 200 people filing slowly along a carpeted floor provided a surplus of electrical charge. As I turned, that static jumped to life, as did thousands of gallons of energy-rich fuel mix. The explosion sent what was left of me sailing out over the ice, and the heat from the blast and ensuing fire melted the nearby ice into a huge crater. It sat there, dark, scarred, and dripping, this time with water.