As plane as anything
21:00
Our plane takes off and I’m pleased because I’m sitting next to Tomas and Joan. We’ve been having a good time together, each side appreciative of the light relief of each other’s company under the frustrating circumstance, whilst finding they get along comfortably and like each other. The other passengers are smiling and nodding at me. I don't recognise any of them.
The flight was 2 hours and so the plane was cramped and unpleasant. The table in front of me had the cartoon safety diagrams on them, permanently looking at me. Everyone has to pay attention to the stewardesses give a safety lecture because if we don’t and the plane sets on fire, hurtling towards the ground at incredible speed, we might now know what to do and consequently might die. We might die in an unsafe, incorrect manner compared to everyone else dying in the procedure following, correct manner.
If we’re over water at the time when the engines stop, the plane will float languidly and graciously from the sky, like a feather, into the calm, blue seas. The plane will sit and float on top of the water, bobbing gently up and down, soothing and relieving us of any shock, whilst we all calmly queue up and in single file slide down those incredibly fun looking inflatable slides. The water won’t be freezing and our limbs won’t instantly cramp up, leaving us immobile. We will blow the magic whistles on our life jackets, summoining the nearby dolphins who will shortly come to drag us to safety, tittering. When our voices become hoarse from singing Kumbaya we will tap each other on the shoulder, “Want some of my hermetically sealed, water-proofed Mars bar?” we will say, then when they look round we will shine our torches directly into their eyes, blinding them for kicks.
I turn to my new friends and quite happily tell them that the safety position of head between knees, hand over heads, was just so that when the impact happened, your spinal column severed cleanly, killing you instantly, preventing prolongued suffering. I decide that maybe other people don’t wanna hear such things, especially during a flight. I remember Fight club, the film, where the oxygen maskes so as to put you in a state of euphoria before the inevitable death.
To keep myself occupied I played a counting game. I would count down from 10 believing that when I hit 0 oxygen maskes were going to fall down from above and everyone was going to start screaming, crying and panicking in an instant. I kept viewing the placid scene around me, people sleeping, reading, a couple lucky bastards watching dvds on laptops, and then imagining how in the click of a finger the scene would turn to pure pandemonium. I tried to predict how different people would react. Who would be frozen, silent with fear? Who would scream and cry? I imagined friends and relatives clutching onto each other tightly, the stronger of the two stroking the others heads, gibbering words of futile comfort. Would random single serving friends start hugging each other and holding hands fearing death, not wanting to die alone?
Eyes open or eyes closed?
Would some people start praying and going on about god?
Would some crazy man start an apocolyptic rant about how doomed we were?
Would couples start kissing and end their lives with beautifully worded sentiments of love to the other?
It must be a lot easier to die with the one you love next to you. If you’re up there and they’re safe on land, you would feel bad at the traumatic emotion they would have to go through at the news of your death while they’re waiting for you at the airport. Then you’d start realising that they’d eventually get over you, albeit being incredibly emotionally vulenrable, and some evil, sneaky, slick fuck would take over her, secretly trying to destroy every memory they have of you. All that love that was meant for you, stolen, by some greasy haired fuck.
If there was some sick virgin on board, would he start trying to cop a feel of some paralysed woman next to him, eventually raping her, time permitting? Realising he wouldn’t be held accountable for his actions.
Would people start puking and pissing themselves. Would everywhere stink?
Would people be fighting and trampling on people to get to the exits?
I’d despise the people who were praying the most and all the people who would put their seatbelts on.
Me, what would I do? During my counting game I wondered also. I would get out of my seat, if there was a religious, praying person in my vacinity I would try and smash them in the weakest part of their jaw to break it. I’d fight my way to the exit and try to open the door. Getting sucked out at high speed must be fucking mint! Maybe I’d get sucked into the engines and scrambled, maybe I’d die instantly from pressure or maybe I’d survive, and freefall to the ground without a parachute. That’s my dream way to die, pure adrenaline rush. Opening the door, I’d take all the other passengers with me. I’d be a mass murderer and in the end it wasn’t the plane crash that would kill everyone, it was my hand. I don’t want to die like some pathetic, snivelling human trapped like sardines in a crushed tin box. I wanna be out in nature, plummeting to my death. Or getting mangled in the engines, pureified into tiny, tiny pieces.
I would like to take some hits of oxygen, but couldn't guarantee that I’d be able to pull myself away.
My counting game got freaky and I realised I was agitated and on edge now. I took a cue from Tomas, lowered the table in front of me, rested my head and slept on and off.
A pilot on an aeroplane doesn’t do very much, he basically does fuck all, nothing except making a couple of announcements over the tannoy. It’s all computer controlled. Out of 20 flights, the computer lands the plane 19 times, he does excatly the same as you, sits there, hoping, wondering. To keep the pilots fresh, they have to manually land 1 out of every 20 flights, just in case the computer crashes. That’s why when you land sometimes it’s turbulent, unpleasant, bouncy and starts to shit you up. I explained this to Tomas and Joan in an attempt to make a comforting remark, counter to my scare remarks about snapping spines and euphoric oxygen.
23:00 (GMT)
We land, thankfully the counting game was just that, a game and not a prophecy.
Västerås, “Stockholm”, Sweden!
Our plane takes off and I’m pleased because I’m sitting next to Tomas and Joan. We’ve been having a good time together, each side appreciative of the light relief of each other’s company under the frustrating circumstance, whilst finding they get along comfortably and like each other. The other passengers are smiling and nodding at me. I don't recognise any of them.
The flight was 2 hours and so the plane was cramped and unpleasant. The table in front of me had the cartoon safety diagrams on them, permanently looking at me. Everyone has to pay attention to the stewardesses give a safety lecture because if we don’t and the plane sets on fire, hurtling towards the ground at incredible speed, we might now know what to do and consequently might die. We might die in an unsafe, incorrect manner compared to everyone else dying in the procedure following, correct manner.
If we’re over water at the time when the engines stop, the plane will float languidly and graciously from the sky, like a feather, into the calm, blue seas. The plane will sit and float on top of the water, bobbing gently up and down, soothing and relieving us of any shock, whilst we all calmly queue up and in single file slide down those incredibly fun looking inflatable slides. The water won’t be freezing and our limbs won’t instantly cramp up, leaving us immobile. We will blow the magic whistles on our life jackets, summoining the nearby dolphins who will shortly come to drag us to safety, tittering. When our voices become hoarse from singing Kumbaya we will tap each other on the shoulder, “Want some of my hermetically sealed, water-proofed Mars bar?” we will say, then when they look round we will shine our torches directly into their eyes, blinding them for kicks.
I turn to my new friends and quite happily tell them that the safety position of head between knees, hand over heads, was just so that when the impact happened, your spinal column severed cleanly, killing you instantly, preventing prolongued suffering. I decide that maybe other people don’t wanna hear such things, especially during a flight. I remember Fight club, the film, where the oxygen maskes so as to put you in a state of euphoria before the inevitable death.
To keep myself occupied I played a counting game. I would count down from 10 believing that when I hit 0 oxygen maskes were going to fall down from above and everyone was going to start screaming, crying and panicking in an instant. I kept viewing the placid scene around me, people sleeping, reading, a couple lucky bastards watching dvds on laptops, and then imagining how in the click of a finger the scene would turn to pure pandemonium. I tried to predict how different people would react. Who would be frozen, silent with fear? Who would scream and cry? I imagined friends and relatives clutching onto each other tightly, the stronger of the two stroking the others heads, gibbering words of futile comfort. Would random single serving friends start hugging each other and holding hands fearing death, not wanting to die alone?
Eyes open or eyes closed?
Would some people start praying and going on about god?
Would some crazy man start an apocolyptic rant about how doomed we were?
Would couples start kissing and end their lives with beautifully worded sentiments of love to the other?
It must be a lot easier to die with the one you love next to you. If you’re up there and they’re safe on land, you would feel bad at the traumatic emotion they would have to go through at the news of your death while they’re waiting for you at the airport. Then you’d start realising that they’d eventually get over you, albeit being incredibly emotionally vulenrable, and some evil, sneaky, slick fuck would take over her, secretly trying to destroy every memory they have of you. All that love that was meant for you, stolen, by some greasy haired fuck.
If there was some sick virgin on board, would he start trying to cop a feel of some paralysed woman next to him, eventually raping her, time permitting? Realising he wouldn’t be held accountable for his actions.
Would people start puking and pissing themselves. Would everywhere stink?
Would people be fighting and trampling on people to get to the exits?
I’d despise the people who were praying the most and all the people who would put their seatbelts on.
Me, what would I do? During my counting game I wondered also. I would get out of my seat, if there was a religious, praying person in my vacinity I would try and smash them in the weakest part of their jaw to break it. I’d fight my way to the exit and try to open the door. Getting sucked out at high speed must be fucking mint! Maybe I’d get sucked into the engines and scrambled, maybe I’d die instantly from pressure or maybe I’d survive, and freefall to the ground without a parachute. That’s my dream way to die, pure adrenaline rush. Opening the door, I’d take all the other passengers with me. I’d be a mass murderer and in the end it wasn’t the plane crash that would kill everyone, it was my hand. I don’t want to die like some pathetic, snivelling human trapped like sardines in a crushed tin box. I wanna be out in nature, plummeting to my death. Or getting mangled in the engines, pureified into tiny, tiny pieces.
I would like to take some hits of oxygen, but couldn't guarantee that I’d be able to pull myself away.
My counting game got freaky and I realised I was agitated and on edge now. I took a cue from Tomas, lowered the table in front of me, rested my head and slept on and off.
A pilot on an aeroplane doesn’t do very much, he basically does fuck all, nothing except making a couple of announcements over the tannoy. It’s all computer controlled. Out of 20 flights, the computer lands the plane 19 times, he does excatly the same as you, sits there, hoping, wondering. To keep the pilots fresh, they have to manually land 1 out of every 20 flights, just in case the computer crashes. That’s why when you land sometimes it’s turbulent, unpleasant, bouncy and starts to shit you up. I explained this to Tomas and Joan in an attempt to make a comforting remark, counter to my scare remarks about snapping spines and euphoric oxygen.
23:00 (GMT)
We land, thankfully the counting game was just that, a game and not a prophecy.
Västerås, “Stockholm”, Sweden!
posted by Swedophilia at 17:25
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