Flight by hypericin
"...Please sit back and enjoy your flight!"
Her spiel over, Jaden watched the attendant’s perkiness melt away, replaced by something more neutral: A blank slate, leavened with a little cynicism, a little weariness. She caught his stare, and Vanna White made a seamless reemergence.
Jaden held her gaze for a bit, checked her out with a rapidity honed by millions of years: still young. Kind of. Not bad.
"Does she want to fuck me?", he mused.
"I think she wants to fuck me".
With equal rapidity he turned to his wife of 12 years, Debbie. She was going on about the houses they had just toured in Austin.
"... the stucco one was one of my favorites. But could you believe that bathroom! And what they were asking! This market just...".
Tune out. This had become second nature years ago. At first this would drive her crazy, and some of the fights were apoplectic. But at some point she came upon a brilliant compromise: she would just talk as if he was paying attention. And he would go about his day freely, as if she were not talking. Their therapist resignedly let things lie there: apparently this worked well enough for both of them.
He checked out the other row. Nearest was a Jew, wearing a yarmulke and a scraggly black beard, muttering and rocking back and forth, engaged in prayer, or possibly some obsessive-compulsive ritual.
Next to him was a bulky man with close cropped hair, and a round, knobby head. His face was color coordinated with a red, backwards baseball cap he had aged out of about two decades ago. The man met Jaden's eye; he rolled his eyes slowly towards his orthodox neighbor, then widened them and drew back, a pantomime of shocked revulsion. Jaden looked away, and the man gave a cruel laugh.
"..if we are all in I think we should offer 15% over..."
The fucking houses. He couldn't understand her sudden fixation on Austin, and on home ownership.
"...it's not often you can get an acre so close to downtown... but with the freeway so close..."
The plane started wobbling beneath him.
Bong!
"Folks, this is the captain speaking. It looks like we are going through some unusual climactic conditions, things are gonna get a little bumpy. I'll take us through as comfortably as I can. Please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts."
Bong! Light on, a clattering of fastening seatbelts. The plane rose sharply and fell, giving Jaden a queasy feeling in his gut that was oddly pleasurable.
It shuddered hard, then seemed to nosedive. The engines strained audibly, and the pilot righted the ship.
As the plane leveled, an oscillating noise began, at first almost inaudibly. At the high point of the cycle, there was a metallic chep, and a frictive sensation Jaden felt through his seat. The oscillation quickened, the cheps growing stronger, until there was a crack, and the sounds of metallic objects clattering, bouncing, and falling away.
The sounds had fallen off, presumably along with whatever had loosened. Everything seemed normal, and Jaden relaxed.
From the left, a great boom!, and a flash of light. The plane shuddered and rocked violently. Jaden looked out the window, and he was certain, for a brief moment, he saw orange flames and black smoke billowing from an engine. Redface angrily slammed down the window, and resumed his nap. The other passengers on that side of the plane seemed to follow his lead, and shut their windows.
Normality resumed. Looking over the passengers, none seemed overconcerned by that brief but perilous vision. It was so fast. Had he fallen asleep? Was it brief dream he awoke from? The windows on that side of the plane were conspicuously shut.
The plane hummed along. A bong, the seatbelt light was off. Vanna started pushing a drink cart down the isle.
A loud pop! came from the rear of the plane, followed by a whistling whine that slowly rose in pitch. A light-headed, vertiginous feeling crept up on Jaden. The whine grew louder, and seemed to resonate inside his skull.
With brutal suddenness compartments opened up above them, and oxygen masks dangled grotesquely in front of their faces
Bong! A stewardess on the PA:
"We are experiencing a temporary loss of cabin pressure. Please strap the mask behind your head, and breathe normally. The bag will not inflate. Assist any small children or elderly next to you before wearing your own mask."
Her voice was calm, reassuring, almost monotonic, as if computer generated. Vanna was in her seat, demonstrating the procedure with a rigid smile.
Redface started shouting:
"Fuck you! I ain't putting this shit on! I don't know what kind of gas you're trying to pump us with, but I ain’t..."
A male attendant materialized. "Sir, I am required to insist that you..."
"I know you guys was bought out by the Chi-kneeeees! You Chinamen can't make me do diiiidley squat! I still got my rights, this is still American airspace!"
Redface pounded his chest. The attendant backed off and turned away. Redface smirked, and gave his backside the finger. "Fuggin’ cuck", he heard him mutter. His already florid face was becoming the vermillion of wine, and spittle was dribbling out of the corners of his mouth. But his expression was pure triumph.
The cabin was becoming unbearably warm. Jaden wished he didn't wear long pants, he felt sweat beginning to pool in his armpits and crotch.
The Jew was now in full regalia, with scarf, and Tefellim strapped onto forehead and bicep. His rocking and muttering was gathering speed, like a failing engine careening out of control before breakdown.
His seatbelt was digging into him. He realized the plane was slowly listing downward, and gaining speed. A muted howling was coming from the window. The lights flickered off, then on again, but with a new, red undertone.
Jaden focused on the girl in back of his seat. "Mom, I'm scared! We're going to crash! Am I going to die?" "Hush!", her mom snapped at her. "But mom..." Jaden thought of what he would do if he was her dad. The kid was freaking him out. He wanted to grab a kid and shake her silent. Maybe give her a good smack.
He looked at Vanna. Fastened in her crew's chair, her expression wasn't much different from when he first spied her sans-facade. Just as unconcerned, just as blank. This must be nothing in her line of work, he thought. No big deal.
He felt he could lose himself in Vanna's face. In the faint but evident creases and folds, in the valleys between cheeks and nose, in the caked on, flaky makeup. In her fuckable emptiness.
Vanna turned to meet his gaze, and immediately that brittle, mother of pearl façade was re-erected. She was a Cheshire cat, Jaden stared directly into the gleam of her white teeth. She was somehow painful to look at, and he quickly turned away.
The Jew burst into song, in a surprisingly clear and melodious voice.
"Modeh ani lefane?a mele? ?ai vekayam!" He sang.
He stood up, ripped off his mask, and outstretched both arms to the heavens.
"She'he'?ezarta bee nishmatee b'?emla, raba emunatecha!"
Redface had ripped down his mask, and was attempting to tear it apart. Hearing the Jew, he looked up, and jabbed a finger in his chest.
"Jus... what kinda magic spell you think ur casting over us?"
Jaden thought he might through a punch. But instead he choked and slumped forward in his chair. A passenger behind him noticed, and bonged an attendant with the overhead call button.
He noticed a sharp pain in his wrist. Then he realize that Debbie was clawing his arm with her perfectly manicured nails, and speaking to him. In fact she was looking straight at him, straight into his eyes in a way she hadn't in years.
"Jaden... I need you to listen to me... The market in Austin is... red hot! We need to come up with a.... strategy!" Her voice broke, verging on tears, and her nails dug deeply into his wrist. She must be drawing blood.
"Please... We just need to... to put our heads together!" Her eyes shone with desperation.
"Lets just review the unit... on Sunset! We both... thought the ADU was adorable! The rental income makes... such a difference!"
Pleadingly, she pointed to the crumpled flyer she had taken from the showing.
"Just look... please..."
And then a clap, like a seizure, and everything happened all at once.
Her spiel over, Jaden watched the attendant’s perkiness melt away, replaced by something more neutral: A blank slate, leavened with a little cynicism, a little weariness. She caught his stare, and Vanna White made a seamless reemergence.
Jaden held her gaze for a bit, checked her out with a rapidity honed by millions of years: still young. Kind of. Not bad.
"Does she want to fuck me?", he mused.
"I think she wants to fuck me".
With equal rapidity he turned to his wife of 12 years, Debbie. She was going on about the houses they had just toured in Austin.
"... the stucco one was one of my favorites. But could you believe that bathroom! And what they were asking! This market just...".
Tune out. This had become second nature years ago. At first this would drive her crazy, and some of the fights were apoplectic. But at some point she came upon a brilliant compromise: she would just talk as if he was paying attention. And he would go about his day freely, as if she were not talking. Their therapist resignedly let things lie there: apparently this worked well enough for both of them.
He checked out the other row. Nearest was a Jew, wearing a yarmulke and a scraggly black beard, muttering and rocking back and forth, engaged in prayer, or possibly some obsessive-compulsive ritual.
Next to him was a bulky man with close cropped hair, and a round, knobby head. His face was color coordinated with a red, backwards baseball cap he had aged out of about two decades ago. The man met Jaden's eye; he rolled his eyes slowly towards his orthodox neighbor, then widened them and drew back, a pantomime of shocked revulsion. Jaden looked away, and the man gave a cruel laugh.
"..if we are all in I think we should offer 15% over..."
The fucking houses. He couldn't understand her sudden fixation on Austin, and on home ownership.
"...it's not often you can get an acre so close to downtown... but with the freeway so close..."
The plane started wobbling beneath him.
Bong!
"Folks, this is the captain speaking. It looks like we are going through some unusual climactic conditions, things are gonna get a little bumpy. I'll take us through as comfortably as I can. Please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts."
Bong! Light on, a clattering of fastening seatbelts. The plane rose sharply and fell, giving Jaden a queasy feeling in his gut that was oddly pleasurable.
It shuddered hard, then seemed to nosedive. The engines strained audibly, and the pilot righted the ship.
As the plane leveled, an oscillating noise began, at first almost inaudibly. At the high point of the cycle, there was a metallic chep, and a frictive sensation Jaden felt through his seat. The oscillation quickened, the cheps growing stronger, until there was a crack, and the sounds of metallic objects clattering, bouncing, and falling away.
The sounds had fallen off, presumably along with whatever had loosened. Everything seemed normal, and Jaden relaxed.
From the left, a great boom!, and a flash of light. The plane shuddered and rocked violently. Jaden looked out the window, and he was certain, for a brief moment, he saw orange flames and black smoke billowing from an engine. Redface angrily slammed down the window, and resumed his nap. The other passengers on that side of the plane seemed to follow his lead, and shut their windows.
Normality resumed. Looking over the passengers, none seemed overconcerned by that brief but perilous vision. It was so fast. Had he fallen asleep? Was it brief dream he awoke from? The windows on that side of the plane were conspicuously shut.
The plane hummed along. A bong, the seatbelt light was off. Vanna started pushing a drink cart down the isle.
A loud pop! came from the rear of the plane, followed by a whistling whine that slowly rose in pitch. A light-headed, vertiginous feeling crept up on Jaden. The whine grew louder, and seemed to resonate inside his skull.
With brutal suddenness compartments opened up above them, and oxygen masks dangled grotesquely in front of their faces
Bong! A stewardess on the PA:
"We are experiencing a temporary loss of cabin pressure. Please strap the mask behind your head, and breathe normally. The bag will not inflate. Assist any small children or elderly next to you before wearing your own mask."
Her voice was calm, reassuring, almost monotonic, as if computer generated. Vanna was in her seat, demonstrating the procedure with a rigid smile.
Redface started shouting:
"Fuck you! I ain't putting this shit on! I don't know what kind of gas you're trying to pump us with, but I ain’t..."
A male attendant materialized. "Sir, I am required to insist that you..."
"I know you guys was bought out by the Chi-kneeeees! You Chinamen can't make me do diiiidley squat! I still got my rights, this is still American airspace!"
Redface pounded his chest. The attendant backed off and turned away. Redface smirked, and gave his backside the finger. "Fuggin’ cuck", he heard him mutter. His already florid face was becoming the vermillion of wine, and spittle was dribbling out of the corners of his mouth. But his expression was pure triumph.
The cabin was becoming unbearably warm. Jaden wished he didn't wear long pants, he felt sweat beginning to pool in his armpits and crotch.
The Jew was now in full regalia, with scarf, and Tefellim strapped onto forehead and bicep. His rocking and muttering was gathering speed, like a failing engine careening out of control before breakdown.
His seatbelt was digging into him. He realized the plane was slowly listing downward, and gaining speed. A muted howling was coming from the window. The lights flickered off, then on again, but with a new, red undertone.
Jaden focused on the girl in back of his seat. "Mom, I'm scared! We're going to crash! Am I going to die?" "Hush!", her mom snapped at her. "But mom..." Jaden thought of what he would do if he was her dad. The kid was freaking him out. He wanted to grab a kid and shake her silent. Maybe give her a good smack.
He looked at Vanna. Fastened in her crew's chair, her expression wasn't much different from when he first spied her sans-facade. Just as unconcerned, just as blank. This must be nothing in her line of work, he thought. No big deal.
He felt he could lose himself in Vanna's face. In the faint but evident creases and folds, in the valleys between cheeks and nose, in the caked on, flaky makeup. In her fuckable emptiness.
Vanna turned to meet his gaze, and immediately that brittle, mother of pearl façade was re-erected. She was a Cheshire cat, Jaden stared directly into the gleam of her white teeth. She was somehow painful to look at, and he quickly turned away.
The Jew burst into song, in a surprisingly clear and melodious voice.
"Modeh ani lefane?a mele? ?ai vekayam!" He sang.
He stood up, ripped off his mask, and outstretched both arms to the heavens.
"She'he'?ezarta bee nishmatee b'?emla, raba emunatecha!"
Redface had ripped down his mask, and was attempting to tear it apart. Hearing the Jew, he looked up, and jabbed a finger in his chest.
"Jus... what kinda magic spell you think ur casting over us?"
Jaden thought he might through a punch. But instead he choked and slumped forward in his chair. A passenger behind him noticed, and bonged an attendant with the overhead call button.
He noticed a sharp pain in his wrist. Then he realize that Debbie was clawing his arm with her perfectly manicured nails, and speaking to him. In fact she was looking straight at him, straight into his eyes in a way she hadn't in years.
"Jaden... I need you to listen to me... The market in Austin is... red hot! We need to come up with a.... strategy!" Her voice broke, verging on tears, and her nails dug deeply into his wrist. She must be drawing blood.
"Please... We just need to... to put our heads together!" Her eyes shone with desperation.
"Lets just review the unit... on Sunset! We both... thought the ADU was adorable! The rental income makes... such a difference!"
Pleadingly, she pointed to the crumpled flyer she had taken from the showing.
"Just look... please..."
And then a clap, like a seizure, and everything happened all at once.
Comments (13)
I'm assuming the last line describes a crash or sudden lethal incident to the plane. The wife's at first constant enthusiasm contrasted with an identical yet desperate (without ever actually panicking) demeanor in the final moments is a riveting example of obsession and perhaps denial that really makes the reader think. Was this intentional or merely random character depth/something relatable.
Everyone seemed to be ignoring each other until a certain crux. Then they all die. Is this perhaps a message?
Edit: No, wait. I got it. The protagonist represents lust and the loss of depth that comes with it as the plane descends. The wife represents mindless vanity and perhaps obsession or denial until finally it grips you intensely. The man with the red hat represents anger and the paranoia that comes with it as well as the suffocation it brings. The religious man represents obsession or blind faith or perhaps power and the quarrels it can bring. The stewardess represents indifference or "putting on a facade" and how it leads to us sitting in contentedness despite impending doom. We, the reader, is the plane and these people are all negative emotions/complexes/attitudes we all have that lead to it's (our own) destruction. Bravo.
Maybe the Jew represents fear?
Anyway, I enjoyed it. I interpreted it as being about life. How no matter how tied up we all get with our own lives, and how important it all seems, it’s all meaningless. The plane is crashing, and “life,” the indulgences we fill our time with, is just an elaborate diversion from the fact of death.
[edit] I meant to add this song. It was playing in my head while I was reading it.
Hmmm. What kind of a flight are we in for ?
Quoting Baden
Will we enjoy it ? Along for the ride, we are.
Vanna the flight attendant - with her many faces - is examined by Jaden.
So - we are looking at facades, people as we see them. And our biological natures...which we sometimes flee from, other times not so much:
Quoting Baden
The male gaze...sexualising...subjective/objective assessments.
Tuning out. Flight from mundane wife talking about potential house move...another 'flight' ?
Checking out the other passengers. Colourful descriptions.
Quoting Baden
We know the type and the attitude towards the Jew. The author describes so well, we are in the cabin seeing, believing and breathing them in.
Quoting Baden
Then come the sounds. Bong ! Something is happening to the plane. The flight is threatened.
All senses alive and alert, as we read...
Quoting Baden
Then automatic responses.
Quoting Baden
But wait. This is wrong advice. Is that the fault of the author or an anxious flight attendant ?
You have to put your own mask on first.
Again with the 'masks'. We need to act brave and calm for the sake of ourselves and others.
Even as we might be in denial. Tuning out. A flight of and from fear.
Mundane stuff carries one along. Life goes on no matter what.
We can deny our way through it - is that a good or a bad thing. Philosophical musings.
The wife clings on to material projects - a distraction from the sham of a marriage. An illusion.
But now she looks straight in his eyes in a way not seen for years. A need. Now she clutches his arm.
Reality hits just like the plane.
Quoting Baden
Wow.
Quoting Baden
Thanks, I did :fire:
Over all too soon. Like life, I suppose...but what a ride, huh ?
I'll take your word for it :wink:
A tale of two crises. At the very least...
I'd also say that the reference to the Jew praying was a risky reference if made by a non-Jew, so I tend to think the writer was Jewish, also along with his reference to the Modeh Ani, a morning prayer, which wouldn't likely be the prayer in a time of crisis, but would be a familiar childhood prayer.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. I liked it. Maybe I read something into the clouds that wasn't actually there, but that's where my thoughts went.
Maybe. So many stories with clouds...wife and family problems...regrets and religion.
Escapism about escapism.
Anything is possible.
Looking forward to hearing from the authors about their inspiration and interpretations.
At the picnic, perhaps :cool:
As a fun exercise I' will submit this to this short story contest:
https://www.tckpublishing.com/2021-short-story-awards-contest/
I will edit it to get it in as good shape as I can. Let me know if you have any editorial suggestions.