Miles To Go Before I Sleep by Jackie Nink Pflug Page B

me.
    I’d never practiced meditation, but I entered that same calm, centered state of being. I turned all my worry and anxiety over to God. I stopped thinking about ways to escape. I let go of any attempt to control my destiny. I felt that either I was going to continue living on earth or I was moving on to another life. In either case, I was going to be all right.
    I thanked God for my life, and I thanked God for the people that I got to share it with. I said good-bye to everyone in spirit—my parents, my friends, Scott, and my students.
    More time passed. Soon, it was mid-morning. No one had been shot for at least four hours.
    Maybe, just maybe, I’d be spared. I had prayed so hard. Maybe I was going to live. Maybe the hijackers negotiated an agreement to release us. A long break in the shootings gave me hope.
    I briefly glanced behind me and saw the old Egyptian man I’d befriended early in the flight. “You’re going to make it,” he whispered.
    â€œIt’s not over yet,” I said quietly. “If you make it back to Cairo, go to the American School and get a message to my husband, Scott Pflug. Tell him I love him.”

    It was about 10 A.M . on Sunday morning, Malta time, when the executioner and his helpers came marching down the aisle, straight to my seat. The endless hours of waiting were over.
    I still felt calm and centered. I was actually feeling sorry for the hijackers, that they had to do something like this to get their message across—one that I didn’t even understand. I knew I was caught in the middle of something much bigger than me or the other passengers on the plane. And I was helpless to do anything about it.
    My hands were still free, but I kept the tie wrapped around them. Again, I thought briefly about shoving the hijacker aside or kicking him in the groin and making a run for it down the staircase. But that thought disappeared quickly.
    But it didn’t matter anymore. I felt such an odd safeness, a sense that I didn’t need to resist or control what was happening.
    They picked me up out of my seat and walked me a few feet to the front of the plane. They positioned me so I was facing the door. I knew what was next.
    Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do. That’s crazy. Who do I think I am?
    One of the hijackers opened the door of the plane and I looked out onto the runway. The morning light stung my eyes. This was to be the last thing I’d ever see on earth.
    The hijacker nudged me out onto the platform of the movable staircase pressed up against the plane. I felt the cold steel of a .38 caliber revolver dig into the back of my skull. I still felt safe.
    In the control tower, Maltese officials heard our captain describe the chilling scene. “He is killing her now,” Captain Galal said. “Do something…. He is outside shooting her now…. I am the captain. You are wasting life; you are wasting life.”
    The executioner squeezed the trigger. I felt an awful pressure in my ears, as my world exploded. I heard the hijackers speaking in Arabic. But it seemed to be coming from another world. I was leaving this one.
    â€œHe is killing her,” Captain Galal said. “He has killed her already, and in a few minutes he will kill another.”

CHAPTER 3

G OD , I N EED T HIS R AIN TO S TOP
    A BANG, A FLASH, AND DOWN I WENT. It all happened so fast. Tumbling and floating, floating and tumbling. I was moving in a slow motion haze. It felt as if a massive surge of electricity was jolting through my skull. Splashes of light and color, a strange feeling of heaviness, a hazy numbness. It felt as though my eyes were pushed into the back of my head.
    Then I was going down, down, down—into what?
    I never heard the sound of my body crashing down the metal staircase like I had when the passengers before me were shot, but I knew I was falling.
    Then it stopped.
    Where am I? Is this heaven? Is heaven hard?
    I was