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Gone

Written by Arian Mabe / Amethyst Mare

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Everyone_stares_ when your phone goes off at the airport. It's as if you are personally holding them up, keeping them from their long-awaited holidays and oh-so-important business trips. The men in suits are the worst. Furs sigh, roll their eyes and adjust their ties. Sometimes, I was one of them, imagining some emergency and morphing into another - frenzied, frantic - shoving others out of my way as I legged it towards the exit. Or somewhere in that general direction. I was a business fur, after all, and I had important places to be, hence the airport. Airports were the worst place to be when you were in a hurry, filled to the brim with stressed bodies. Nobody ever goes for a stroll around the airport. The very nature of the place is to be obscenely busy. That is why it is a cardinal sin to answer your phone at the airport, if you could even hear the other over the roar of chatter. This time, however, I held up the line.

It was Saturday the sixteenth of February and I had to travel up to Edinburgh, by plane, that is. I never was one for trains. As I frequently made this journey, I was well prepared to pace through the metal detector (potentially with a well timed wink at the good looking security personnel) and send my belongings through the whirring, clicking machine that would tell airport security whether or not I had chosen to carry a bomb that day. I never carried explosives, so it was a mute point with me, a mere hindrance. They would never bother a beautiful wolfess. If I had been carrying an explosive though, it would have had to be a bright pink one, something flashy. I couldn't live without my pink. The other recruiters at the investment firm - my mother made a point to let everyone know just how prestigious a job it was upon any opportunity - teased me as a colleague for my love of pink. We all have our vices. It was just as well that my vice was pink and not the transportation of explosives.

A tired eyed weasel with a kit - that was what you called them, right? - in her arms stepped on my heel and I frowned, ignorant. She shook her head, russet ponytail bouncing, and the youngster opened her gaping, pink maw to scream piercingly. I resisted the urge to put my paws over my ears, conscious of other travellers pressed in around me like sardines in a tin. Sardines being loaded on to the shiny metal container that flew through the sky. I stepped up to the metal detector, putting one hind paw forward to enter as normal.

And then the phone beeped, the little black box buzzing anxiously next to my silver watch on the tray. The corners of the security supervisor's mouth turned down and the weary black cat sighed.

"Are you going to take that?" He asked in a monotone.

My first instinct was to say, no, of course not, why on earth would I answer a call while working through airport security? How absurd. Though I hesitated to ignore the call. I did not know anyone that would be calling me, so surely it must only be a wrong number or a salesperson telling me all about the most wonderful cruise I had won, if I handed over my credit card details, of course. Something twisted in my gut and I put a pale paw to my belly, smoothing down the cotton shirt that I had thought more comfortable for travelling if I must wear a smart suit on top. I had an image to maintain, just like I couldn't let the call go to voicemail. The mother on my heels muttered a curse as I nodded and reached for the phone, paw as steady as ever.

"Hello, Jane Jones speaking," I answered, pressing the smart phone to the side of my head.

"Jane?" The connection was bad. I could barely hear who was on the other end.

"You will have to call me back, I'm afraid," I said, slipping into my business persona unconsciously. "I'm about to board a plane and the connection is dreadful. I will be in touch as soon as I've landed, I assure you."

"Jane? No - wait!"

Ah, I recognised that voice. My sister-in-law, Kira. She did not speak to me much but, when she did, it was usually something important. Or what Kira deemed important.

"Yes?" I said more sharply than intended, all too aware of the blonde invading my personal space. That wailing youngster was almost in my back pocket and made it difficult to hear, so I pressed my paw over my other ear in time to catch what Kira said next.

"He's gone, Jane, he's gone." Kira's voice cracked.

"Gone? Who's gone?" I was perplexed, understandably so. "Look, Kira, I have to board a plane. This isn't a good time."

"No," she pulled me back. "It's Brian... There's been an accident."

The world reeled and I put my arm out against the metal detector, scant support. My stomach rolled as if I was on a boat, rocking and dipping sickeningly and I feared for a moment that I might vomit. I took two slow, deep breaths. A male - canine - asked another what was taking so long. Kira began to cry. The security supervisor - his name tag read 'David' - looked at me with the beginnings of concern.

"What kind of accident?" I said very carefully and levelly. "Tell me right now, Kira.What has happened?"

"There was a buck...on the train..." Kira was full out sobbing, her voice broken with emotion.

"He...he...had a knife."

"What's happened, Kira?" I half-shouted, fighting down bile. "What's happened to Brian? Where is he?"

"He...he's..."

Kira was incapable of saying anymore, the hysteric. But I knew, oh, I knew.

You never think it will happen to you. That your brother or any member of your family will be snatched away by a madman. Yet it happens. Oh, it happens. And the world throws you off balance.

I was distantly conscious of crumpling to the ground, phone clutched tightly to my breast. Furs towered above me like trees, trees with faces and muzzles and eyes and tongues. A staff member in a blue shirt crouched down near my head. He was asking me questions. I couldn't answer. Kira cried. Brian was gone, taken from us. It was before his time. He was only twenty-eight. My little brother was too young. Through her tears, Kira told me how the criminal had escaped, injuring several others on the train in the process. He seemed to have had no connections with Brian, though that did not matter. Nobody else on the train mattered. Nothing mattered, except that Brian was gone. My brother was gone.

And now everything would change.