Slight Panic
The airplane rumbled. The pilot's voice emitted from the speaker.
"Attention ladies and gentlemen. At this time, we’re facing a little bit of turbulence. If we could have everyone buckle up and stay in their seats.”
This would be bad news for the enormous man sitting next to me, who had christened the bathroom as his own private refuge with the number of times he frequented it. I was glad for turbulence. The fat man would be obliged to sit still and I could finally get some rest.
Some rest did not arrive. There are two kinds of turbulence. The first is a slight tremor that might give you the spooks. Then there are the ones that feel like the plane has lost control. This one was the latter. The plane felt like it was attempting somersaults.
Fear precipitated into the crowd. It takes just a bit of throttling to make a man realize he is hurtling in an aluminum can at speeds that would squash him. An immigrant woman a few seats ahead of me begins to scream prayers. Prayers that you scream when you have a degree of confidence about death’s proximity. This is it, she thought in her hometown tongue. She dropped the charades of politeness and let out sermons like a gazelle surrounded by wild dogs.
This prayer for salvation does not prove to be comfortable. It exasperates the situation. Suddenly everyone’s gauge for approaching death, normally at a cool range, begins to read in the red.
Vertigo shivers through my body. I run through the list of people I care about. Family, some friends, a handful of lovers. I say goodbye to my mom and dad, to my brothers, jump to my present lover, and then the old ones. My mind daydreams, judging them for how they'd react to my untimely death, squashed first slowly by the fat man then quickly by the crumpling aluminum as it slams against the face of the Pacific.
The plane stabilizes but I continue to revel in the impact my death would have on the people in my life. What a fun little thought. Aren't I so special? The plane lands several hours later and I enjoy a mediocre time in a lovely new country.