Flight

The engine when from a soft purr to a super loud roar. Mary felt herself pushed back into the seat as she closed her eyes and imagined everything working as expected. She didn’t know why she would close her eyes on every takeoff, perhaps superstition, something her mother told her to do. Or perhaps she did it the first time on a plane and just became second nature now. It had been so long ago the point was lost and she let the thought pass by.

She had the unfortunate position of being in the dreaded middle seat. Years ago this would have never bothered her as she would get a chance to perhaps meet some new people and learn about their lives. Making friends used to be so easy. Now is was so much more difficult, and the pandemic certainly didn’t help things. Everyone was so afraid and tired, and tired of being afraid.

Even the guy sitting to the right of her was still wearing a mask and had a hoodie over his head. He seemed pressed as far up against the window as humanly possible and constantly was staring out the window. She wasn’t sure if he was terrified of flying or absolutely fascinated by it. Years ago she would just ask. But now, it seemed ill advised to even try to start a conversation.

She pulled out her phone and plugged it into the power adaptor in the seat in front of her. The airline had added the ability to watch shows on your phones and tablets using a wireless system on the plane. She thought it was funny that they were still asking people to put their phones in airplane mode, but explicitly allowed connecting to this service, surely it would interfere? Who knows, at least they had some television shows she was interested in watching. Most of the time services like these are filled with shows you’ve never heard of, or the worst of the worst shows you had heard of. She decided to watch a primetime soapy sort of show that didn’t require too much of her attention while she let the flight noises drone on in the background.

The flight attendant pulled up by her row and pushed a yellow bag of pretzels into her lap. It almost felt like the attendant needed to get rid of these bags as quickly as possible, almost like they would have given her ten packs just to be done with them. Next came the drinks question. It occurred to Mary that no matter how short or long a flight they made it a point to offer people ten cent cans of soda to everyone. She was sure the guy to her right was going to avoid all contact, but he seemed to light up and turn to the attendant and ask for a Dr. Pepper. The attendant obliged and he got to the matter of pouring his soda over the ice in a plastic cup that the attendant pass to him.

-V-