Granola Guidelines for the Sensible Refugee

Don’t think about before. Never think about before, it will break you. Avoid the memories and resist the impulse to indulge in them. Forget the kind faces and small shops where everyone knows you. Forget the strange foods and smells beside the road, whether good or bad.

Remembering these things will leave you empty. 

Empty is bad.

Empty will leave you broken.

Fact: Crying on a plane by anyone besides small children and babies, terrifies people.

Always turn away or you risk having a good natured passenger asking if you are alright, and this simple act could break you. Gaze out the window at the small, graceful birds that fly elegantly near the terminal. You envy the way they fly; unaware of anything but the sky they roam. 

Warning: Looking out at your fellow passengers will cause you to see friends in simple strangers.

They aren’t there, look away. Forget them. There are proper times to mourn the living. No, no don’t think that. 

Don’t think of what is to come. All there is now is now, and that’s all you can handle. 

Please don’t break.

Fact: Music can help relive stress, it calms the mind. You read that somewhere. Don’t let the engine roar louder than the creciendo of the piano. Keep the volume up. Don’t you dare turn it down

Warning: As you found friends in strangers, you will find words in even the most mute of songs, truth in every stroke of the violin. 

The orchestra does not play of your despairs, the guitar does not strum of the piece of you left so hastily behind. The piano is not offering a supportive hand.

Skip the song, don’t break.

Fact: Flight attendants are exceptionally determined in the distribution of snacks. Every passenger must be kept fat and happy.

Fact: Food is a good distraction. Eat it slowly, savor every bite.

Fact: You quite like granola bars, they are much better than the disappointing bag of pretzels smelling suspiciously of cardboard.

Fact: Your hands become restless when your nervous. Hide them deep in your pockets, don’t let anyone see them shake.

A nervous wreck can cause panic on planes. 

Don’t be a nervous wreck, don’t break.

Fact: Air Marshalls have guns. 

Please, for the love of God, don’t break.

Keep yourself distracted. Tidy your area, it may be small but it’s the tiny slice of world you have control over. 

Fact: Control relieves stress, it calms the mind, you read that somewhere.

Fact: Not properly fastening your seat belt will cause skull shattering collisions with over head compartments and food trolleys. In turn, this would ruin all the tiny bags of pretzels, saving others from their deathly blandness. 

It would also ruin the granola bars.

That would be no good.

Fact: You quite like when the plane takes off and lands. Entertainment lies in the faces of non-frequent fliers, terrified by the way the plane shakes. 

Today you’re the one terrified, you are the clown. This is not a comforting thought.

Fact: Even the crappiest of horror movies can take your mind off loneliness.

Choose a scary one. Scary enough that thoughts of warm days at the pool with friends, complaining about homework and enjoying home cooked meals disappear. 

Never pick one too scary or you might remember it tomorrow.

You can’t break tomorrow.

Flight attendants will return with a more bountiful harvest of poor quality food. You will start to wish you ruined their trolley when you had the chance. Don’t dwell on it.

Fact: Faking sleep makes people leave you alone. Leaving someone alone means they won’t give you a small plastic box of slop lacking the vital granola bar unless a third party intervenes. 

Pray a third party does not intervene.

Fact: The proper way of faking sleep is to turn away from the target (a) so that you can not be seen properly. Close your eyes and if you want to boost chances of success, open your mouth slightly. Turning towards (a) could result in flinching or smiling. This will blow your cover. Don’t forget to turn away.

Fact: You probably won’t smile.

Fact: If your phone vibrates, it’s friends. 

They are probably wishing you good luck and safe travels or something of similar meaning. 

Don’t check it. 

Feigning happiness and excitement is not an option, it will break you. Instead focus on the finer details of the movie. Memorize the lines and characters, despite how poorly written they may be.

You will be too exhausted now to see any secret meaning in them. 

Good.

Fact: When the movie ends, you will feel an empty feeling in your chest, like you’ve lost a good friend. 

The credits will become synonymous with a funeral. Say goodbye, don’t stay long.

Look for another movie.

Opinion: Another movie is not an option, it’s too soon after the first one, you would feel like a traitor.

Fact: It is just a movie. You are becoming too fragile.

Fact: Anything will break you now if you aren’t careful.

A man coughing.

Faces in the clouds.

An empty seat in the row across from you shuddering from turbulence.

Please don’t break.

Fact: You will miss them. 

Fact: Panic will rise through the holes in your chest.

Please, please don’t break.

Fact: Picturing certain things can relive stress, they calm the mind, you read that somewhere.

Certain images could include a solid black hammock swinging in the middle of the night with you nestled inside gazing up at millions of stars. A gentle breeze rustling the invisible trees.

Fact: You quite like stars.

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Fact: Never having heard the captain’s gruff message of the weather and half hearted thank you, you can assume you slept because the plane is moving steadily downwards.

You will curse the third party for waking you.

Fact: You wish you could just sleep forever.

Fact: You can not sleep forever. 

Therefore you must wake up.

Fact: Waking up means you can’t break, it means you must return to your new reality.

Fact: Your new reality isn’t pleasant.

In this new reality you are hurdling downwards, completely to the whims of the wind with no knowledge of where your going, stuck in a metal box piloted by a man you don’t know, flying in ways you don’t understand without being able to see a few feet in front of your face.

And yet you boarded the plane.

Fact: You are strong enough to get through this.