The plane suddenly shook its passengers alert. Those who had been sleeping were now rudely awakened from their unconscious states. Even the flight attendants who were walking up and down the aisles clung to the seats to steady themselves while the plane gave off two more sudden jolts.
“This is your captain speaking. We’re experiencing some turbulence in the skies right now so we’ve turned on the fasten seatbelts light as you can see. So if you all will carefully return to your seats and fasten those seat belts we up here in the cockpit will try to get to some smoother skies.”
Juliet immediately clutched both armrests as the airplane shook and jolted. For a good two minutes the plane continued with its struggle to keep steady while all the passengers looked around with anxiety livid in their eyes. Juliet looked at the man sitting next to her and he had the book he was reading clutched in one hand while the other grabbed the other armrest. His eyes were completely sealed shut and his knuckles were white with the force that he used to clutch his book.
With every jolt there were plenty of gasps and semi-screams though the plane cabin. Across the aisle, the couple that was so peacefully sleeping just moments earlier were looking up at the oxygen mask frantically awaiting their decent from their cases. The few children that were aboard the plane began to cry as the fear of flying and the fear of falling suddenly became too real and too closely intertwined for their young souls.
“This isn’t so bad, this isn’t so bad, this isn’t so bad.”
Juliet glanced back at the man sitting next to her. His eyes were no longer furiously shut, but instead he was intently staring at the back of the seat in front of him and he was quietly repeating to himself in attempts to comfort himself. Juliet forced a smile though she was sure he wasn’t aware of anything but the shaking of the plane and the seat in front of him.
Though it seemed to be quite some time, the plane finally leveled itself in calmer skies. Overhead the pilot apologized for the discomfort of turbulence and reassured everyone that everything was fine.
With relief, Juliet let go of the armrests only to feel the sharp pain of her cramped fingers after being clenched for so long. The crumpling of papers brought her attention back to the several letters and cards that were the unfortunate victims of her hand and the armrest. Unfolding the table attached to the seat in front of her, she started her attempts to smooth out as many wrinkles as possible.
“That wasn’t that bad, it really wasn’t that bad.”
Juliet looked up from her crumpled mess to the man next to her and she smiled. “It really wasn’t. Supposedly you’re safer up in an airplane than in a car you know. Less chances of accidents.”
The man finally tore his eyes away from the seat back and gave Juliet a blank stare. His face had blanched significantly from before. “I’ve flown quite a number of flights in the recent years and I still can’t get over the turbulence.”
“Yeah, some flights just are better than others,” she agreed.
“You know,” the girl on the other side of the man chimed in, “while on my flight back to the states we had some pretty nasty turbulence of our own, which was actually worse than this. This wasn’t bad compared to that. What’s funny was that during that flight, the guy sitting next to me insisted that it wasn’t bad turbulence until you see the flight attendant hit the ceiling of the cabin. Unfortunately during one of his flights, he tends to travel a lot due to work, though I can’t recall what he did right now, during his flight the plane hit turbulence so suddenly that the flight attendant standing a few rows ahead of where he was sitting didn’t get a chance to return to her seat or even grab on to anything before it threw her off her feet.”
Juliet gasped and asked with complete shock in her voice, “Oh my god was she ok?”
In disbelief herself, the girl nodded and said that she was fine, shaken up, but fine nevertheless. Then she turned her glance to the man in between and offered an empathetic smile. “No one went flying here so we’re good. And hey, that’s a good book you got there.”
The man in the middle forced a smile and looked from the girl to his book, “Heh yeah, I’ve been told. So far it’s kind of strange.”
Juliet glanced down to the book that he was holding. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, she read. “I have to agree, it’s a strange book, but hang in there,” she said with a smile. “It’s an interesting read.”
~ ~ ~
No comments:
Post a Comment