More short story stuff...

Plane Lapse

“I am over you finally”

“That’s what you said before. How do I know this is any different from the last time?”

“Because of this.” Click.

Whew. That felt good, thought Elliott. Elliott just told the girl he had been in love with for the past 7 years that he was ready to move on. He was over her. He didn’t care about their past, present or future relationship statuses or possibilities.

This was a lie.

Elliott slumped down into his uncomfortable seat on his Northwest Airlines flight. He swore that his wood chairs at his dining room table were just as comfortable, if not more comfortable than these tail-numbing, airplane seats. Whatever; I’ll fall asleep once we get in the air, he thought. He was so glad to be flying home. It has been a long time since he’d seen the tall, green pines and the wide-leafed oaks of the Southeast. He knew his mom was getting his room ready. He could picture her making the bed, pulling out a guitar for him to play, and filling the frig with some of his favorites. Mmm…Ball Park hot dogs. His mouth began to water.

Brrr. “This is your captain speaking. Thank you for choosing Northwest airlines today. The flight is going to be right on-time. We’re going to try and make up some time for you in the air. Hopefully we can get you in ten to fifteen minutes early. The weather is perfect, but there might be some slight turbulence until we get near the Midwest. So just sit back and relax. Next stop Charlotte, North Carolina.” Brr.

Elliott pulled out his CD player from his messenger bag and put in a mix he made for this trip. He looked around and knew he was the only one on the plane with an actual CD player, and not an iPod or some other variation of an MP3 player. He joked that he was retro, but he really was just scared to invest so much money into something that was easily lost or stolen like a MP3 player. But he knew it was only a matter of time until he succumbed to technology. Maybe he would just wait until they could install a mini-speaker into your ear and listen to music wirelessly. It was only a matter of time.

He adjusted himself in his chair. His eyes were starting to get heavy. He was fading away to the soft, simple words of Rocky Votolato. His eyes closed like a vault door, with an echoing thud. Elliott would only remember two things as he stepped into his subconscious. First, he remembered his doctor telling him his “hallucinations” were nothing to worry about. They would wear off. He just got a little too creative when his subconscious took the wheel. And second, that the song that just started was one of the best songs he’d ever heard. It was Idioteque by Radiohead. It was a shame this song would play a part in scaring the hell out of him later.

Elliott twitched in his sleep. He twitched more than the average twenty-something year old. Sometimes he twitched so rough that it would wake him up, but this kind of startling twitch only seemed to happen when he was sleeping somewhere he wasn’t used to. Like this plane.

Elliott twitched just hard enough for him to wake up. What the…, he thought. He pried open his left eye just slightly; he didn’t want too much light to get in and start the photosynthesis process of a headache. When he opened his eyes, he felt the turbulence. It was weird that the turbulence didn’t wake him up, or that he didn’t notice the turbulence until his eyes were opened. But maybe it was just him being groggy.

He opened his other eye and slowly let his squinting eyes adjust to the fluorescent airplane lights. As he tried to adjust, he noticed the other passengers. They looked a little edgy. Some of them even looked frightened. Elliott was not too unnerved at this; he knows what turbulence can do to people. He brushed the peer-pressured-worry out of his homeward bound mind. But as he did so, he realized Idioteque was still playing. That’s strange. How long have I been asleep?

Elliott looked down at his new, brown Penguin watch and saw that he’d been asleep for about an hour. Ok good, he thought. The CD had just played all the way through. It couldn’t be the repeat switch; that broke years ago in a freak mini-screwdriver fight with his brother. The combination of 56 worried passengers, 8 frightened-looking passengers, and a repeating song that repeated for an hour without a repeat function, would have made him push aside the natural, no-worries attitude for a second, and contemplate the probability that he could be starting to get freaked out. But no, everything was fine.

The plane thudded.

Turbulence is so stupid, he thought. Why doesn’t God just keep the wind and other turbulence causing things out of the stratosphere? Elliott shifted a little in his seat and closed his eyes again. Idioteque was still on.

Who’s in the bunker?
Who’s in the bunker?

The plane thudded again.

Elliott opened an eye, but quickly closed it again.

Here I’m allowed, everything all of the time.
Here I’m allowed, everything all of the time.

Right when Elliott drifted away a sharp jerk swept the plane. There was a unified gasp throughout the plane. Everyone grabbed their armrests and held their breath. Elliott wasn’t asleep anymore. The plane jerked violently again, only this time harder. People were starting to make very scared noises. Babies began to cry. Young girls began to whine and cry with frequencies I thought were reserved for dogs. Grown men were perspiring, and their wives were saying prayers. Elliott just sat there playing over and over the thousands of possible outcomes in his mind.

Brrr. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are experiencing turbulence. Please stay seated and calm. We’ll be…” Brrr.

Brr. “No, don’t do that. Hit the stabilizer; we’re going to lose cabin pressure. Donald! Stop!” Brrr.

Brrr. “Is this….Donald….whined the….relieve….missing another….no time….” Brrr.

Elliott felt his stomach rise and then drop in his torso. He felt his eyes turning blood-shot. Lunch was taking revenge on him. As he used his index finger to hit stop on his vintage CD player, the plane shook harder than the first two times, throwing the older lady beside him into the aisle. Why wasn’t she wearing a seatbelt? But as his mind was asking the question, the emergency exit to Elliott’s left bent inward. The sound was similar to a sledge hammer hitting the side of your car. Elliott tightened his seatbelt as a second, much-larger areo-sledge hammer indentation was made. Elliott let out a murmured “Oh no” as the emergency exit door ripped off the plane. A tornado-like wind thrashed into the plane. Everything not attached went flying. Books and magazines were everywhere. The luggage compartments flew open, emptying all their contents everywhere. The bags were hitting people, knocking them out.

Elliott screamed, but no one heard him. His scream fit with everyone’s else’s screams. He was going to die. They all were, but he was going to die.

A little girl slipped from her mother’s grip and was sucked out of the plane. Elliott slammed his eyes shut. This is not fair, Elliott cursed. His chair creaked with a slight jerk.

“Oh no!” Elliott yelled.

Elliott grabbed the chair beside him, but his neighbor’s chair was ripping out too. He wildly groped everywhere within arms reach. He had to find something to hold onto, but there was nothing! He reached again for his neighbor’s chair, but it wasn’t there anymore. It streaked past him, out of the plane and into the sky. The jagged metal base of the chair slashed his shins as it flew by. The pain was intense! Elliott gritted his teeth together hard. He could feel the blood pouring out. He wanted to reach down and feel the damage, but every time he leaned forward, another chair would fly by ripping more flesh out of his legs.

“Help! Oh no! No! No!” Elliott screamed at the top of his lungs.

“Sir? Is everything ok?” someone asked.

Elliott looked to his right and saw a stewardess, with not a single hair out of place, standing amidst the chaos. Visual wind was blowing all around her. People were screaming everywhere. Kids were being thrown outside the plane, right past the stewardess. As every vein in Elliott’s body was bulging from him trying to stay in place, he considered something. Hallucinations. Was this a hallucination? If it was, it was his worst one so far.

“Sir, I’m going to need you to lower your voice and calm down. You are disturbing the other guests,” politely asked by the pristine stewardess.

It was a hallucination! Elliott closed his eyes hard again. He tried to visualize things right before he woke up. Uncomfortable chair. Radiohead. Vintage/ghetto CD player.

Elliott opened his eyes. The stewardess and a few other guests were looking at him with a confused expression. The airplane wasn’t chaotic anymore. All the luggage was where it was suppose to be, and all the chairs were in place, bolted to the ground. It was a hallucination.

“M’am, I’m sorry. I have hallucinations. Please forgive me,” Elliott said.

“It’s quite alright. Would you like a beverage?” asked the stewardess.

“Yes M’am. Do y’all have Dr. Pepper?” Elliott said.

"No, but we have Mr. Pibb. Would you like that?" she replied.

"No, I'll just have a water then," Elliott said.