The art of disaster

At 3am, the SUV glided quietly to a halt, concealed in a clump of trees dotting the roadside. This far out in the countryside it should remain undetected by any law enforcement or concerned motorist, especially at this time of night. As the crow flies, he is about ½ mile north of the crash site, a quick hike from where he parked his vehicle. He walked around to the and opened it, revealing a large plastic bin in the cargo area. He pulled it forward and removed the lid. Once opened, he rifled through the contents until he came to the jacket he needed and held it up to the interior light. He saw the familiar yellow block letters emblazoned across its back that read NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board). He pulled the next tote forward and found a matching ball cap amongst the other federal jurisdiction caps like FBI, FEMA, etc. He had them all.

He sat back in the driver’s seat, pulled down the visor mirror, and flipped it open. The lights surrounding the mirror flickered to life.  He spent the next five minutes applying his mustache then gave himself one last appraising look at his image and got out of the truck.

He needed to find the best insertion point at the crash site. Once inside the perimeter, he can blend in with all the other NTSB investigators and go about his work. As he hiked in, he reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and plucked a laminated badge with his photo and clipped it on. He could see some activity ahead and hugged the shadows to get as close to the scene as possible at which point he would turn on his flashlight to act like he was investigating. Getting onto a formal crash site for civilian passenger aircraft was the easy part. The difficult part would be getting a piece of the fuselage out. The specific part of the fuselage must come from the forward section, just below the cockpit. The Feds tend to get a little nasty when evidence is mishandled, or walks away from an active accident investigation, as in this case.

But, the ends justify the means as they say.

Fortunately the myriad of investigators that blanketed the scene were more focused on their individuals tasks than with anything he was doing. After dismantling the part from the aircraft he slid the 1’ by 2’ panel under his intentionally baggy jacket. It was time for his exit.

The short path out took him across the entire debris field and past all of the active investigators. Hopefully he didn’t have to interact with anyone. He chose the short path.  He started across the debris field when he heard someone yell “hey you”. It came from behind him so he acted as though he didn’t hear it, in case it was meant for him, which it shouldn't. He didn’t get but a few steps when the voice yelled it again, this time with more authority! He stopped and turned. The man was not only looking at him, but intently so. 

“I’m sorry, are you talking to me?”  He asked him, in order to stall for time and formulate a plan. He was worried that the bulkiness of his package tucked beneath his windbreaker was tellingly suspicious.

“Yes..You! What’s your name? The unknown official asked.

“Mark Orford, sir”. He added the “sir” for effect.

“Mark, good man, I need to get your preliminary report in less than an hour in order to brief the press.” He said  The official looking man then yelled the same instruction to the entire site. Mark turned and simply walked off the accident scene as unnoticed as he arrived. He delivered the access panel he took to Jacobi, then, drove the 150 miles home to sleep.


At 7am his cell phone rang abruptly, awakening him from a deep sleep. He rolled over and spied the screen. Maybe he didn’t need to answer it depending on who is calling. It was Jacobi, so he answered it. “Yah, do you know what time it is?” He complained.

“Do you have your TV on? If not, turn it on. Turn to Channel 6 news.”  Jacobi stated.

 The on-air journalist was explaining that a piece of space junk had re-entered earth’s atmosphere and struck a building in Honolulu, Hawaii. The news channel speculated that it was the Chinese space station, which had been in an “orbital decay” for quite some time and was the best scientific guess as to what hit Honolulu. The Chinese government has been silent about their space junk for the last three months and all inquiries had gone unheeded. 

The building was an office park complex and was completely destroyed. Jacobi advised him that he needed to get on the next plane to the island, because he wanted a charred piece of the debris. Jacobi sent over the specific requirements to his phone which he confirmed he received it and told him he would be on the next flight. Twelve hours later he was in Hawaii to retrieve the artifact. 

The lights were dimmed to just the right levels for Jacobi’s comfort. At 97 years old, he needed as much comfort as he could get. He was racing the mortality clock now and he knew it. He spent all of his time working in his studio on his sprawling estate.  The outbuilding was built for an explicit reason and Jacobi had abandoned the comfort of the main house for quite some time now to focus on finishing his latest,  last, work of art which was a sculpture. 

There was nothing more important to his work than the math. By his account so far, the current project had a total of 422 souls attached to it. The benefactor who commissioned the piece was someone he could not let down. Jacobi would never forget the day he met his benefactor, not long after his wife passed away. He spent a lot of nights after her death drinking, as a form of grief therapy. In those days he went into alcohol fuelled benders and was on a particularly wicked bender when the man knocked on his door  A lot of that conversation was foggy to say the least, but the gist of the deal was clear. If Jacobi agreed to the art sculpture, then once it was finished he would get to see his wife again. He knew all along that the man was some form of evil incarnate, but the reward for his effort were too great to pass up. 

There isn’t another soul on this planet that knows his suffering to this point. Each and every moment he handles a delivered piece of material, he sees the horror of the souls attached to it. Forty-eight people die in a coal mining accident and a helmet light from one of the victims now sits atop the nearly finished work. He can still feel the last terror induced breath the coalminer took. Jacobi is tired. Not in the normal sense. Instead, his fatigue is at a tipping point. He has sensed the long arms of death reaching for him, and it is coinciding with his last piece, which was to arrive soon. 

His suffering would end soon “hell or high water!"  He thought to himself. The eminently disturbing aspect of the piece was it allowed anyone who ran their hands over its contours the psychic horror imprint would be revealed.  A kaleidoscope of images of death and carnage flashed along the path your hand traversed. No one other than the benefactor could find it a pleasure to view. Jacobi hadn’t seen the benefactor in quite some time. Yet, he felt in the hollow of his bones the benefactor was approaching like a tempest on the horizon. His entire body ached with the arrival. 

He needed to be with his wife, he promised her he would. He remembered cherished times spent on perfect evenings. Jacobi could still envision his wife’s face in his mind. He remembered her eyes would change every time she put her flowing blond hair into a pony tail. The pressure of the tie pulling her scalp up and back would, in turn, slightly pull the corner of her eyes in the same direction.  It gave her an Asian appearance. In spite of the pain Jacobi endured, the promise of her was stronger. Jacobi started to replay another memory when he heard his side door opening. The anticipation was killing him. It would either be his benefactor, or Mark, with the last piece. Jacobi tucked his thought away and stood to straighten his suit. The sound was coming closer and with it, his expectation of uniting with his beloved. His love had always outweighed the fear of his participation in the deaths of all those people. Jacobi was certain that anyone else in his position would have done the same.