The stewardess tapped me
on the shoulder bringing me to a state of wakefulness. Bleary eyed I looked up
to her. She was an older woman, late forties if I had to wager a guess. The
years had not been too kind to her and one could see her time in customer
service had permanently removed what may have been a wonderful smile. Her
nearly gray blue eyes offset her muted brown hair, which looked like it had
been dyed more than once recently. It was cut into a bob that did nothing to
frame her face. I shifted my focus to her hands. They had a sense of aged life
I could never understand. These hands looked like they had cut boulders.
Plainly they had seen more life and misery than I ever would with my entire
body. Scars ran up and down the tough skin pulled tight across her bulging
veins and bird like bones. “Sir, we are about to land. I need you to bring your
seatback up.”
I narrowed my eyes and found
myself fixedly locked into her eyes; an unspoken battle of wills was raging. I’ve
never understood the point of moving the back of the chair three inches forward
for the safety of landing. I personally believe it is a sociological experiment
some jackass devised to see if people would never question how a slight change
in comfort would allow the plane to land better. A pilot once told me it was
designed to allow people to get out of the plane quicker in case the plane had
an emergency. The only emergency I can think of on final approach is a crash
landing, and well, in that case. Who cares? We are probably all dead anyways.
But since I didn’t really want to delay the landing of the plane on my account,
I complied with her request and set the seat back. I gave her a little smile
and was met with an icy cold stare. Perhaps it’s impossible to reach some
people.
The smell of the recycled
air on the plane was beginning to bother me. I shifted uneasily in the chair.
Flight itself has never really bothered me nearly as much as the takeoffs and
landings, with the latter being much more tortuous to me. I believe most people
feel a sense of relief on final approach as their current leg of their journey
is coming to a safe conclusion. For me, it is fraught with all the possible
ways the pilot, a simple human like me, could smash the plane into the ground.
The plane buffeted. I gripped the armrests with lightning reflexes. A sheaf of
papers nearly fell out of my lap.
I have no idea why these thoughts always came to my head.
Thousands of airplanes have landed so many times safely. But I guess it was a
trend that has been part of my entire existence, to question and try and find
fault in anything and everything around me. I’ve been trying to amputate this
part of my personality for ages, but it always seems to stick to me.
-V-
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