Chapter Twelve
Jump of Faith
I glanced at the fuel gauge. It wasn’t good. The plane, with all its extra fuel tanks, had never been intended to reach the island. Earlier in the day, I had flown over the beach, only to see that my boat was gone. I had decided in that moment to risk reaching the island with the plane, instead of landing and dealing with the locals, who had taken my boat. That might’ve been a mistake, I thought now, as I reflected.
I’d been gaining altitude steadily in order to glide for a while, if I needed to, but it was going to be a close thing. Asia sat in the copilot’s chair gripped in the tension of the circumstances. I hated to see her like that, but there was no avoiding the grimness of the moment. Worst of all there was a storm raging outside.
I looked at her and wanted to swear hard, but contented myself with slamming my fist down hard on the dash. Asia glanced at me in concern.
“What are you thinking?” She asked softly, as the plane was tossed around by the strong wind outside.
I didn’t want to vent on her, but she’d asked so I told her, “Every time something’s going well for me in life it goes south! You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I’m about to lose you or watch you get hurt again!”
I slammed the dash hard again in a statement of bitter emphasis, “I wanted this so much and now….!” I left the rest unsaid.
I wanted to swear in the worst way, but I didn’t. We were out of fuel. I could hear one of the engines coughing even now. My foolish decision to go on was going to get her killed! I gripped the wheel hard wanting to strangle it to death in my anger and the need to lash out at something.
“I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to you?” Asia asked, interjecting into my wrathful anguish.
“Yes!” I said rawly.
“Because of the sex you want to have with me?” She asked hesitantly.
“Good grief no!!!” I responded hotly. It was entirely my fault that she had such a low opinion of me.
“Then why John?” She asked.
“Because you’re nice! I mean really nice! Heck you’re as close to perfect, as someone could be! I thought… I thought….” I left the rest unsaid again, but she wouldn’t leave it at that.
“You thought what John?”
Bitterly I confessed, “I thought maybe you’d help me change! Make me better, if you will. Maybe not nice, but at least better than the pathetic loser I’ve been all my life. But now all I’ve done, after a long list of abuses against you, is to kill you! I should’ve landed on the mainland! I should’ve found a boat, even if I had to steal it from cannibals! What am I saying, with my luck the boat would’ve capsized!”
I looked over at her my gaze full of raw emotion, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry about everything! Nothing ever ends well with me, I’m cursed!”
She shook her head, “I’m not sorry I met you or that I’m here with you right now!”
I heard engine number two cut out. We were gliding now, dead in the air, above the cold ocean below.
“You soon will be!” I stated grimly.
“Is that your island?” Asia asked.
“What!” I said startled, even as I saw what she was pointing at through the clouds of the storm. It was impossible! I picked up my flight plan. We should still be an hour’s flight or more away from the island.
I scanned through my calculations. They were all correct, but that was my island! I could tell from the outline of the breakers in the rough seas that formed a small bay on the east side of it. There was no way on Earth that my island should be down there right now.
I glanced over at Asia, “You’ve been praying again haven’t you!”
“Always.” She said.
I steered the dead plane towards the island.
“Maybe someone upstairs wants you to have a happy ending this time.” Asia commented softly.
“He’s just saving you, but believe me I’m very grateful for that!”
“I wasn’t praying for myself John. I was praying for you so that you might believe the truth that God loves you and that He wants the best for you!” Asia said pointing at me.
I gripped the flight stick harder, as I was churned up inside by the emotions roiling through me.
“What’s it going to take John to make you believe?”
I lashed out at her, “So what, if we’re at the island! We still have to jump for it and our chances of landing safely on land are next to nothing! Anything can happen and go wrong, which it likely will!”
Asia’s jaw firmed, “So be it John.”
The flight stick went dead in my hands and I looked over in consternation at Asia, as I watched her assume control of the gliding plane. She was steering away from the island and going with the wind!
“What the hell are you doing Asia!”
“Hopefully pounding a point home into that thick head of yours!” She responded grimly.
Before I could switch control back over she slammed an old coffee cup down onto the control display and sparks leaped out all along the dash. Asia was out of her seat and into the back of the plane before I could grab at her.
I heard the hatch open, as I tore my seatbelt harness off and lunged up after her. She was standing there parachute harness already on.
“See you on the island John.” Was all she said before she jumped out the open hatch.
“No!!!” I screamed, as I lunged for her, but I missed. We weren’t even over the island! The wind was blowing away from the island! It was suicide. It didn’t matter. I slung on a parachute and jumped out after her. I could at least choose to die with her.
Asia could hardly breathe against the force of the wind let alone talk, but she heard her words in her mind, “This is my leap of faith Lord. Please don’t let me down or I’ll be guilty of murder.”
She’d seen John jump out after her, but she couldn’t see him anymore. She couldn’t even see the island anymore just the angry crashing waves below, as the wind drove her out to sea.
The wind swirled into a cyclone of turbulent air and she felt herself hurtled into an air channel like an out-of-control locomotive. Her screams were lost in the roar of the storm. There was an abrupt hard jolt and then there was no more wind, just rain.
Dazed she looked around. She was hung up in a tree. A tree! Crying with emotion she searched for the knife John had given her and finding it she cut herself loose from the parachute to fall to the ground that was only two feet below her.
She’d fallen to her hands and knees and her hand lay on a flat stone. Looking up she saw another and another. It was a pathway. She got up and started running up it desperate to find some trace of John in the storm. Up ahead she saw the outline of a house in the rainy gloom. Asia broke out into an all-out run, when she saw John in front of the house keeled over onto his knees. He looked hurt!
“John?” She cried slipping down beside him in concern. He wasn’t hurt, he was crying! Deep wrenching sobs that racked his whole body so hard that he had to be hurting himself.
“Oh John! Honey don’t!” She said, as she pulled his face out of the mud and up against her chest trying to comfort him and get him calmed down some.
“God loves you John!” She remembered back over her own wild ride through the air channel, “He loves both of us!”
Asia held John tightly, as the rain poured down. Eventually, she got him coaxed to his feet and inside the house. It was cold and they were both drenched. Asia stood shivering in the dark interior of the house unsure of where anything was.
Shivering she took off her drenched outer clothes and hugged herself, as her teeth chattered. Something bounced off of her and she reached down to find a soft woven blanket at her feet. She grabbed it up and huddled into it.
There was a spark and then a surprisingly bright flame, as a fire lit up in a nearby stone hearth cheerily. The room grew lighter and Asia went to stand by the fire soaking up the sudden warmth of it, as John built it up bigger. John was naked, but it wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen his most intimate parts before. Still it was a new and different thing for her to experience. Distracted by the shifting display of muscles and raw masculinity she almost missed seeing the look of sheer agony that was marred across his features, as he squinted against the light of the fire he was building for her. He had one of his headaches! The fire was big enough.
She grasped a hold of his cold shoulders and tugged, “John let me help you!”
Asia pulled at him, until he left off building the fire and let her pull him to the single bed in the room. He collapsed down onto it on his front clutching at his head. Asia wasted no time in beginning to work on him forgetting how cold she was for the moment.
She worked hard at relaxing him, her hands moving over him in a firm massage meant to aid circulation and ease the pain he was gripped by. It wasn’t long before his deep breathing told her he was asleep and far from the pain of the headache.
Asia slipped off of the bed and threw more wood on the fire. It was already quite bearable within the tightly constructed stone room. She came back to the bed to stare down at her man. He pretty much took up the narrow bed. Gently, as not to wake him she coaxed him onto his side. She grabbed the blankets up from the foot of the bed and covered him up before slipping underneath them herself.
She cuddled up back against him nestling her head onto his arm, even as his upper arm swung over top of her to hold her against him possessively. Her eyes closed peacefully, as his deep warmth thawed out the rest of her. She would rather be nowhere else in the world right now than right here with him. How strange the ways of God could be.