“Sir, don’t write on the menu,” she said harshly.
Susan pointed to the back of the seat, and rolled her eyes in a condescending way.
“Use a napkin or something,” she added.
“I didn’t write that.” The man had startled look.
Susan responded by staring angrily.
“Seriously, those numbers were here when I sat down. I didn’t write that.” This time, the man had a look of innocence.
Susan thought the man looked sincere, and she was just about to apologize for her little outburst, when someone tapped her on the right shoulder.
“I think someone is having sex in the bathroom. There are two of them in there,” said a concerned female passenger.
Susan sighted and looked across the food cart.
“On your first day,” Craig said, and gesticulated, indicating that the event was taking place on her side of the food cart.
As Susan made her way down the aisle, she tried to remember what the employee manual stated regarding public fornication onboard a flying vessel.
“You’re breaking the law!” she yelled, and pounded the door with her fist. “What you’re doing is illegal!”
Susan felt all eyes were on her, judging her performance. Just as she was about to raise the lavatory sign and unlock the door, the door suddenly opened, and a man emerged with his eyes focused on the floor as he quickly made his way up the aisle. Susan froze when she saw the other man. The man had a blank look, his face was plastered with hostility, and his hair was as dark as his eyebrows. The man mumbled a few words she didn’t understand before he returned to his seat with his head held high.
Again, Susan felt a tension in her chest, and she sensed something was wrong. She checked the bathroom briefly before she rushed back to alert Craig. However, Craig just smiled and winked at her. But when Susan pointed out that both of the participants were men and suggested he should alert the captain, Craig’s smile vanished, and he was obviously offended.
“Sorry, I didn’t…”
Susan didn’t know how to finish the sentence, so she just smiled and hoped Craig would accept her apology, and forgive her clumsy remark. Susan’s headache had gotten even worse. She felt as though her brain was pounding on the inside of her skull, almost as if her skull weren’t big enough to accommodate her brain.
“Can a person drink too much water?” she asked Craig, and hoped for a sign of forgiveness.
“I only drink herbal tea.”
“But isn’t that the same thing?”
“Water is so plain and boring.”
That didn’t answer Susan’s question, but she saw an opportunity to patch things up with Craig. “Herbal tea sounds good. I’ll try that.”
Her last potential customer didn’t seem to want anything and completely ignored her every inquiry. Susan wasn’t sure whether the man understood English. She’d noticed him writing in a foreign language on his laptop. She couldn’t understand any of the letters, and to add to her confusion, the sentences the man wrote went from right to left.
The herbal tea didn’t stop Susan’s brain from trying to escape her skull, and neither did two aspirin. To add to her discomfort, her ears kept popping, and she had to help several passengers who were enduring the same problem. As Susan told the elderly woman seated by the window to inhale, close her mouth, clamp her nose and exhale, she noticed the raindrops on the window. The plane had obviously descended below the clouds and had started to initiate landing. But the seatbelt light wasn’t on. The pain in Susan’s chest was back, and she felt that something was horribly wrong.
Suddenly, Susan’s weight shifted. It went from approximately one hundred and seventy pounds to zero. She was weightless. Gravity had all at once ceased to exist; she felt as if she was floating around in space.
Her mind identified the perception of her body and produced a pleasant memory for her to enjoy: They were at the top of the rollercoaster, and just as the car was about to plummet, he’d grabbed her hand and together they’d embraced the emotional ride with cheers of joy. This time, however, no cheers of joy awaited at the end of the rollercoaster ride. But as Susan plunged into eternal darkness, she could actually feel his presence. As if he were right there, holding her hand. And just before the picture went black, she could actually smell him.
The scent of her only child.
9 LIFE
Friday night
His body was numb from the crash. He felt paralyzed. But the terrible situation didn’t make a difference to him. He was determined to remain in his seat. He didn’t want to live anymore, and he’d rather die sooner than later.
But as the cold water rose above his neck, he started to panic, and he was overpowered by the urge to live. Every fiber in his body told him he had to live.
Only life mattered.
He knew he had to move quickly. He coughed up water from his lungs while he desperately tried to unfasten his seat belt. His body was still numb from the crash, and his lungs felt as if they were on fire. He finally broke free, reached the ceiling, coughed up more water, and gasped for air in the remaining shallow air pocket. Then he half-swam, half-groped his way through the interior of the air cabin, and discovered the cabin door was already open.
The plane had stopped sinking, and the swim to the water surface wasn’t far. He reached the surface just as he ran out of air. His vision went black. Nothing could be seen but darkness and the pitch-black night. The heavy rain collided with the water surface, causing the water to splash into his eyes. He closed his eyes and tried to listen instead.
Then he heard her name.
And just then, he believed he was dead. He thought he’d died in the crash, and this was the afterlife. He thought God shouted her name to remind him of his betrayal. As if God had taken her side, and left him in the darkness as a punishment for his crime.
But then he heard her name again.
And just then, he realized a man was shouting her name.
He knew he was alive, and God was nowhere to be found.
10 HUDSON RIVER
Friday night
The chocolate had lost most of its impact on his taste buds. The spike in his blood sugar made him nauseous, and so did the increased blood pressure from all the salt in the potato chips. But he was determined to finish this week’s quota of unhealthy calories, since next Friday was a week away.
Tom Hanks was just about to land an airplane on the Hudson River, but the sound of a phone ringing interrupted the heroic landing. He paused the movie just as the plane was about to make contact with the water’s surface. He expected a call from his mother regarding the next day’s visit to see his sister in the hospital. He dreaded seeing his sister. Not because he didn’t care about her, but something about the tubes upset him.
When he read the caller ID, however, he felt his heart stop—at least metaphorically.
“George Stanton speaking,” he answered.
George rose to his feet as soon as he realized what the conversation was about, and his eyes opened wide while he tried to process the information given to him.
“Could you repeat that?” he asked in disbelief. George had a hard time trusting what he’d just heard. “How is that even possible?”
How could both pilots have died?
“Yes, sir,” George said, and then reminded himself to address his boss by his first name. “I’ll see you soon, Mike.”
George Stanton’s plan for the weekend had just drastically changed.
As the public relations manager at Fare Airlines, George Stanton was also the spokesperson for the emergency crisis team. In case of an emergency, he was the one assigned to deal with any inquiries from the press. In his to-date six-months-long career at the company, he’d only attended one crisis team meeting.