Season Ticket

I am not particularly scared of flying. I have no aversion to humans defying God’s intention and achieving something they were not built for. I don’t break into a cold sweat when the doors of the plane are closed. I do not strain my attention to the extreme when the hostess repeats the instructions that are supposed to save your life when suddenly the machinery, which was in the earnest an attempt to sabotage God’s plan of not giving humans any wings, plummets from 35,000 feet to meet the ground. I do not clutch my seat’s hand-rest in a crunching grip when the plane takes off, leaving the assuring safety of solid ground behind. I don’t even mind the carbon copy smiles they welcome you with just when you are about to surrender your fate into their hands or the flickering ‘seat belt’ sign that controls your movements inside the box in the sky.

I just don’t enjoy flying very much.

In fact, it had gotten worse recently. When the wheels of the plane have just left the relative safety of the hard ground, I have this blinding flash of pain and a hallucination of a few seconds which varies vastly from dancing in the ring of fire to flying without wings.

Stupid planes.

I found myself confronted by another plastic smile. It was all I could do to stop myself from wiping it off with my hand. And imagine I paid for this! Resigning myself to my fate, I looked for my D13. Having finally found it, I firmly planted myself on it.

No, dear sir, I am not carrying luggage. Also, it would be great if you could not bother speaking to me for the next 3 hours.

As the plane began to fill up, my old uncomfortable feeling returned. Given how frequently I travelled, it was a wonder I hadn’t been able to shake this off yet. While I had been busy scanning the entrants from the gate of the plane, somebody tapped my shoulder and spoke to me, ‘You min’ shifting a little?’

While the voice had a bit of edge of irritation to it, it was not meant to insult. I observed the new companion. Like me, this person was also sans luggage. But that was where the resemblance ended. He looked about 40, with a recently acquired natural tan. His faded and aged sky blue shirt betrayed the signs of impending middle age belly. His khaki trousers sat in perfect contrast to his loafers, which looked like they had shared quite a significant amount of miles between them. All in all, this new guy looked like he just had about 10 seconds to grab hold of his ensemble before heading out to catch his flight. Yet, the way he carried himself, it looked like he would have selected the same clothes even if he had an hour to pick.

I grudgingly shifted to make room.

‘Hi. I’m Mike.’ He said with the offer of a handshake. He didn’t look like a Mike.

‘Hi Mike.’ I said out of politeness, but did not feel polite enough to offer my name in return.

‘Not much of a plane person, are you? I completely understand, bud.’

I wondered how.

‘Look Mike. I don’t want to be the rude guy you met on the plane, but I really don’t feel like a conversation right now.’ I said, keeping my tone as polite as possible.

The guy called Mike raised his hands in a gesture of surrender and took his seat. They greeted us with the customary announcement before the metal sleeping giant woke up to reach out to the skies.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, the Captain has turned on the fasten seat belt sign. We request you to prepare for take-off, please. Thank you.’ 

The plane began to show signs of movement. As it prepared for the final run before it leapt towards the sky, I double-checked my seat belt. Not that it will be much help at 37,000 feet, but it did help me get through the take-off. As the plane began to cruise towards the imminent tarmac-screeching run, I looked around myself. The people seemed strangely relaxed. A mother in her early 40s was checking on the seat-belts for her two squirming kids. Another man, dressed in a crisp corporate suit, was busy attending to possibly some unavoidable last-minute e-mails. A 10-year-old kid was deeply entrenched in a struggle with his recliner lever, which seemed to put up quite a good fight. It seemed as if the plane was a stage where everyone was busy performing their parts to perfection.

A prod from Mike brought me back to jarring reality.

‘You okay there, bud? Looks like you swallowed one of ‘em little bugs…’

‘I... I…I’m fine.’ I said. The transportation was so abrupt that I even forgot my previously adopted hostility against this stranger who insisted that he was my ‘Bud’.

It was only when the seat belt sign was off that I managed to regain some control over my breathing. As you would expect, I never take my seatbelt off. Still not completely at ease, I was at least safe in the knowledge that I now had no say in my fate. I took another deep breath to calm myself.

‘Say, you ever thought about this thing crashin’…’ Mike asked with good-natured curiosity, like he had just asked me if the soap I was using these days lathered enough.

Horrific as it was to imagine the despondent thought, I could almost sense the morbid fascination that was running just beneath the tone of his voice. Maybe it was just my already stretched nerves.

‘The person who screwed nuts and bolts on this thing probably spent years learning to do just that. You have to study and do a lot of stuff to become an engineer, you know. God knows how many days and nights I spent regretting ever filling up my college application, and I’m not even an engineer!’ I replied.  

‘But you see the absurdity of this?’ he waved his hands around to show me ‘this’. 

‘We’re basically hangin’ in the air by some screws and nuts. You know what my granma, bless her soul, used to say about the planes? ‘Not a foot on the ground, not one on the cloud.’ The old fox was onto something there, eh?’ He jovially punched me lightly in the arm.

I was not ready to give up the argument just yet.

‘I don’t see many people in this plane trembling at the prospect of falling from 35,000 feet.’ I countered.

‘Oh, they’re certainly scared at the back of their min’. It’s just that they look at each other and find courage in the company. Surely the God won’t punish so many of them for the sin of others. Sure, the planes can crash, but not ours! Reminds me of a story my granma used to tell me as a kid…’ By the look on his face, he seemed to have travelled to some distant time in the past. And without an iota of enthusiasm from me, he continued.

‘There was this bus full of old people going to city. It was night, and the road was empty. Outta nowhere, a storm gathered around them; nothin’ country folks were not used to. But suddenly lightnin’ struck just in front of the bus. The driver managed to avoid the lightnin’ but hit a ditch. The front-wheel went bust. Stuck in the middle of nowhere with thunder around them, the kids began to cry. The hyenas or somethin’ in the fields started howlin’ back. Everyone was scared outta their wits. Suddenly, one priest lookin’ guy stands up and starts shoutin’ to the bus that this is God’s punishment for someone’s sins on this bus. As usually happens, they all found trust in God when trapped with no way out. Priest’s cry found many eager ears, and they all agreed to the theory.’

At this point, he paused to unhook his seat belt. In spite of myself, I leaned forward in anticipation.

‘So this messenger from God came up with another brilliant idea. He said each one of us will step out of the bus and walk twenty steps away. The Lord shall strike down the sinner and spare the rest. It was as if all of ‘em were caught scratching their balls in the canteen just before lunch. While they could not not agree to the suggestions, none were confident enough to not be a tad bit scared when their turn came. One by one, they stepped out and walked the longest twenty steps of their life. Despite their confident walk, the look of relief on the walk back betrayed ‘em. In the end, all they were left with was one village whore at the back of the bus. When all eyes turned to her, she clutched her arm-rest ferociously and begged them to show mercy. Driven over the edge of humanity with fear and self-righteousness, they practically dragged her and pushed her from the bus. While she gathered her feet under her, the mended wheels of the bus started down the road. She half ran, half crawled towards the rapidly disappearing bus, shrieking all the way to not leave her alone there. Just when the bus was at the edge of her visibility, down came the lightnin’ right on the top of the bus and… Boom!’

The abrupt end of the story took me by surprise. Gathering my thoughts, I asked him what was the point of the story.

‘God works in mysterious ways, bud.’ he said with the air of omniscience, as he unbuckled my seatbelt.

‘What do you think you are doing?’ I asked him, incensed at his impudence.

‘George, bud, it’s almost time.’ He peered at me like a teacher faced with a student who was acting stupid on purpose.

‘What time? And how do you know my name?’ I sounded alarmed to my ears; I was fairly certain I hadn’t offered my name to him at any point.

‘We’ve been doin’ this every day for 4 years now and you still don’t remember. You’re just impossible, man!’ 

Besides myself with bewilderment, I almost shouted at him.

‘Just leave me alone!’

‘Leave you alone???’ he practically snarled, ‘Why can’t you get it through that skull of yours? We go through this every day. Little Billy back there has understood this. Why can’t you just accept the loop?’

I looked over to where he was pointing at. That kid from earlier - ‘Little Billy’ - smiled me that serene smile of his and gave an encouraging nod. Inexplicably, at that moment, the vision with the ring of fire revisited me.

Just that moment, a voice reached my ears, connecting the loop.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, the Captain has turned on the fasten seat belt sign. We have run on to an unexpected zone of turbulence due to unforeseen weather conditions. Please return your seats and keep your seat belts fastened. Thank you.’