Benadette Esposito

For most of her life Bern believed that her recurring plane crash dreams were an augury of a crash to come. Rather than give up flying, she set up an elaborate belief system to inoculate her from a crash: she would not fly during inauspicious astrological aspects, on the eighth day of the eighth month or on flights whose numbers added up to eight. Then, on the eighth of August, she boarded flight 7685 to Paris. Following take-off, the engine over which she was seated exploded. The question of why she abandoned a belief system that otherwise would have prevented her from boarding the flight initiates an investigation into belief, proof and survival. In 2006 Bern trained to investigate Survival Factors in Aviation Accidents at the National Transportation Safety Board Academy. Her essays on plane crashes have appeared in several literary journals, including "Best American Essays 2011." She teaches math in Laramie, Wyoming.