Airplane

It’s difficult to write about this strange occurrence because I don’t know where to begin. I do know that I was in an airplane. How I got there, I am clueless. I have this annoying feeling that I live on this airplane, but that’s neither practical nor logical. Thus, my confusion.

The plane was mostly full of passengers; very ordinary, it looked to me. Nothing out of order that I could see, nor anything abnormal concerning the flight attendants. I couldn’t see the pilot and co-pilot. They must have entered before the passengers boarded.

Passengers were still shuffling around, putting carry-on bags in the overhead bins, caring for children and other loved ones.

I was sitting on an aisle seat, my daughter, Mara, next to me and my wife, Sandy, by the window.

A flight attendant went through the emergency procedures, while most people ignored her. The other attendant spoke into a microphone and asked everyone to put their seats in an upright position. Then the buckle-up request prior to immediate take-off.

I was looking out the side window. Our take-off was so smooth that it felt as if a giant hand reached down from the clouds and pulled the plane up into the sky. Even looking out the side window, there was the illusion of a vertical rise in the air. I suppose that’s what happens when you are tired from lack of sleep. That illusion was followed by my delusion that I somehow knew, vaguely, who the other passengers were, in the sense that, in general, they had somewhat familiar faces.

I knew that I was wrong, of course. That delusion was not possible. However, it did make me wonder if I’d forgotten to take my medications. When the medications don’t relax me, then meditation usually works. So far, the flight was smooth, so I closed my eyes and let my unexplained anxiety drain away.

It seemed that there was little movement or even noise from the passengers, which is highly unusual, but entirely welcomed. I also noticed that the attendants did not go up and down the aisle to check the upright seats and the seat buckles.

My daughter had headphones on, while my wife was reading. They were both so focused that they appeared frozen in their seats. The plane suddenly surged forward, picking up speed rapidly, accompanied by engine noises, as well as other mysterious noises that didn’t seem to fit in with the mechanical sounds that an airplane would make. The engine noises bothered me. The two engines seemed to be singing off-key, a duet sounding like two drunks gargling. When the gargling stopped it was replaced by a high-pitched tenor sounds instead of the deep, undulating bass of a baritone as I would have expected.

Why didn’t the other passengers feel or hear this? It didn’t seem like a normal reaction. Even my wife and daughter seemed unfazed by any of the abnormalities that I had been experiencing.

Now the plane banked sharply, and people had to lean towards each other, shoulder to shoulder. The plane righted itself, then plunged downward into a severe dive. I gripped the seat handles tightly from fear and stress. I felt Mara’s hand under my hand, but she, nor my wife seemed concerned. I thought I saw the green earth out the window before the plane gradually rose then banked again, but in the opposite direction. The weird noises continued, but it appeared that I was the only one aware of them.

We were flying in the clouds now with all the windows full of the whiteness.

The plane began to shudder, vibrate as if it was a war bomber and the enemy was shooting at us with aircraft artillery which exploded close to the plane, the violence of the resulting flak sending out shock waves that shook the plane.

I thought I heard a scraping or scratching noise as if the clouds had some solidity to them and the plane rubbed against them.

I got up to go to the restroom. My anxiety affected my bladder in a negative way. When I came out, the two flight attendants remained seated in their little alcove. They both stared straight ahead. I saw their eyes blink and I could tell that they were breathing by the movement of their chests. Other than that, they were motionless until they both smiled at me as if they were automatons. I smiled back but all I could think of was WTF is going on. In a near panic, I started sweating profusely.

Then I noticed that the passengers’ actions were the same as the flight attendants, minimal movement, as I walked toward my seat.

On the way back to my seat I felt the plane suddenly rise upward out of the clouds. I staggered backwards and grabbed the back of a seat to steady myself. In doing so I accidentally hit the head of the man who was occupying the seat. I apologized lavishly but, to my surprise, he gave no reaction, nor any remark to me. He just stared at the back of the seat in front of him.

I continued to my seat with the unsettling feeling of Déjà Vu. Then I startled myself by thinking that I’ve had Déjà Vu before. Deja Vu of previous Deja Vu. It seemed like a series of familiar memories but fleeting, as if dissolving quickly. I thought, if this is truly Deja Vu, the one I’m currently thinking of, then when I arrived at my seat, everyone will be staring at me.

Upon the arrival to my seat, Mara and Sandy were staring at me. I turned to look up and down the aisle to see every else staring at me, too. So then, I was experiencing serial episodes of Deja Vu. It was difficult to reconcile this feeling, so I sat down to think seriously about what I thought was going on. I felt too embarrassed to talk to Sandy about it. Was I going mad? Was this a prank? That was not likely, I thought.

However, I never did have time to think seriously because when I looked at Sandy, I also looked out her window. The tri-bladed engine on that side of the plane had stopped. Though it was vibrating with the wing, it was stationary. At this point I thought I’d have a mental breakdown, especially since everyone else was calm. I wanted to scream at them. I just needed time to think. There had to be a logical explanation.

But before I immersed myself in thought, a voice from the clouds said, “Tommy, put down your toy airplane, stop all those weird noises and come to the dinner table.”

Tommy’s mom teased him at the table. She said, “Tommy, how does your plane stay in the air? There’s only one engine working, the one that you keep flicking with your finger, making the propeller spin.”

“I Can’t reach the other one, Mom, so I pretend that it’s spinning.” Tommy picked up his fork and stabbed a piece of food. Tommy worked up a good appetite while flying his airplane.