#TheWritersRoad to "Hard News" ... Prologue (1989)

Past the end of the runway at Key West International Airport, out in the far distance where Florida Bay lapped up against the great grass sea of the Everglades, a phalanx of thunderstorms was grinding out of the Gulf of Mexico and onto the mainland. The towering thunderheads – some reaching nearly twice as high as Everest -- did not quite form a wall, but created a moving mountain range that looked as if were encased in black steel. Streak lightning sparked between the earth, the ocean and the dark plateau at the mountainous base. Echos of lightning trembled high in cold valleys that would dwarf the Grand Canyon. It sizzled along vaporous ridges until it shattered against the twilit door of heaven somewhere between the stratosphere and the stars that were emerging in the eastern sky back toward Miami. For the first time Aisha Isles, an eleven-year veteran of SunshineAir, thought perhaps this was a flight she should sit out. One that everyone on Flight 217 should sit out. #TheWritersRoad