Hijacked

Contains mild graphic imagery and themes of psychological distress.

“Would you like something to drink, sir?”

It always starts here. Row nine. Aisle seat. The drinks cart is sliding toward me like it’s on invisible rails, a slow inevitability.

“We have coffee, tea, apple juice… or perhaps something stronger, for a small extra charge.”

I see her perfectly: taller and slender, heels polished to a mirror shine, hair pulled back so tightly it looks painful, her smile precisely measured. Beside me, a kind-faced old woman taps my arm. Her skin is paper-thin, her touch dry and electric. She asks if I could order her a cup of oolong tea. She’s flying to see her grandchildren - her first flight since the pandemic. She reaches for her phone to show me photos, remembers it’s off, and laughs at her oversight.

All of it is as clear as day - everything except me. I never see myself. Not my hands, not my knees pressed against the seat in front of me. Sometimes I think I’m not even in the body that’s here.

I know the dream by heart. Same opening, same end. Night after night. Months now without proper sleep. I lie awake until dawn, clinging to that little illusion of control morning brings, then watch it slip away when exhaustion drags me under.

The dream shifts, just a little each time. One night, the old woman asks for peppermint tea. Another, she says nothing, her hands clenched in her lap like she’s bracing for impact. In Seat 14, a man leans back with his mouth slack. The next night, it’s empty, the cushions still creased, the seatbelt hanging open.

Back in the dream, and I’m not even sure it’s me, maybe just a body my mind has slipped into. I choose coffee. She tips it from a metal pot into a flimsy plastic cup. I skip the creamer and drink it in one burning swallow. The first few times, I thought, Why am I drinking coffee at night? but the thought just sort of hung there, not sure which world it belonged to.

The cabin’s half-dark. Most passengers asleep, their breathing rising and falling like a returning tide. Those awake, like me and the old lady, get another round of drinks. Maybe we’re close to landing, though it feels like we’ve been circling forever.

Then always, I stand. Walk past the nearest lavatory, heading for the one by the cockpit. I question it every time, but my feet are spelling it out for me in a language I don’t understand.

Once, I open the cockpit lavatory and find my apartment instead: lights on, dishes in the sink, my jacket slumped over a chair. A shadow moves in the next room, just beyond sight. I blink, and it’s gone. Another time, I force myself to stay seated, gripping the armrests until my fingers ache. My body strains upward on its own, muscles tightening, as my heels lift from the floor. The old woman’s hand clamps onto my arm with impossible strength, her nails digging bloody pits into my flesh.

I wake up drained. Weeks upon weeks of two or three hours’ sleep. Pills, herbal concoctions. Nothing sticks. One morning, I realised I’d been lying awake until sunrise, waiting for the flight attendant as if she might step into my bedroom.

Before the dream, I had it all: a good job in advertising, a life propped up by paychecks and routines: the apartment, the dinners, the girlfriend so dazzling she felt out of my league. I remember the sunlight pooling across my desk, late-morning city view, steam curling from my coffee, the quiet hum of the office. Around noon, my phone would buzz with a photo from her: lunch at some café, a glass of white wine set just so, that ease she carried into everything. A few weeks ago, I would’ve done anything to keep her close. Now, I’m not sure I’ve kept anything at all.

Then the dream settled in, and my life began to fall apart; not all at once, but one piece at a time, with mechanical precision, like an elaborate Rube Goldberg device: sleepless nights tipping into endless coffee, into a mistake in a meeting, into my boss’s tilted gaze, into a missed briefing, into dismissal, into the apartment sold, into her leaving. If I hadn’t been inside it, I might have admired the precision.

At first, I tried to reclaim my life from the dream’s grip. Therapy, hypnotic regression - anything. I burned through my savings. Each remedy held for a moment, then failed. By day, I fueled myself with caffeine until my hands shook, the crash leaving me more tired than before.

The weeks between those falling pieces blurred. I began falling asleep in public. Once, on the subway, I woke in the wrong part of the city to daunting strangers staring. Another time, in the staff lounge, I jolted upright to an empty room, the lights already off. A client asked for my phone number, and my mind went blank. The shriek of a supermarket trolley froze me mid-step.

I begin to wander: streets, late-night cafés, finally the airport where no one asks my name. Vast glass walls look out onto dark runways, blinking lights mark the edge of the world, planes slide past one after another, their engines' hum vibrating in my bones long after they’re gone. I buy the cheapest tickets to random cities, always requesting row nine, aisle seat. On board, everything unfolds exactly as I’ve seen it hundreds of times.

Again, the same question, the same tone. But tonight, the attendant glances past me to someone else. The old woman smiles faintly, already home in her grandchildren’s arms. I choose something stronger. Drain it in one swallow.

As I rise, the cabin feels heavier, air sucked out, my ears popping. Silence swells in the space left behind. Sleeping passengers breathe in unison, bound for destinations they’ll reach without knowing they’ve arrived. I am nowhere.

I move toward the cockpit. Pale faces stir as I brush the armrests. Some flinch. From the dark, a pair of eyes gleams: steadier than before, unblinking. The flight attendant steps into the aisle ahead, blocking my path. She asks again, “Would you like something to drink, sir?” For an instant, her voice is softer, familiar. Her features shift, sliding ever so slightly, until my girlfriend’s mouth shapes the words, her eyes widening with something between pity and warning. Then the face flickers back to the attendant’s, though the echo of the other face lingers, pulling me forward like an undercurrent.

A burning, acidic scent seeps into my nostrils. The old woman’s voice cuts through, sharper now, as if speaking directly into my skull. Whispers mount to a thin, breathless laughter, building row by row, a sound without warmth, like the whole cabin is in on a private joke and I am the punchline.

I keep walking, fingertips brushing each armrest, rousing passengers who blink at me with glassy, startled eyes. I want my face to stay with them, even if I can’t see it.

The lights throb: white, then whiter, then blinding. The engine’s hum swells to a roar that shakes loose something inside me. Ice in my chest cracks outward, numbing my hands.

I reach the cockpit door. My hand closes over the handle - colder than metal should ever be. It turns from the inside, and a pilot steps out, head down, eyes dulled, shuffling toward the forward lavatory without a glance. Before the door can shut, I slip inside. The hum deepens, pressing into my skull. The lock light winks red behind me.

I stand in the space he’s left. My other hand drifts to the latch. Behind me, the laughter fades. The silence is absolute, except for the faint squeak of the drinks cart from the very first night, rolling toward me from somewhere impossibly far away.

The smell of coffee scalding, suffocating. My vision tunnels. The cabin closes in, pressing from every side. Each breath comes shorter, tighter, as if the air has already mapped its escape.

Through the narrowing gap of sight, I see it: a vast lightless ocean stretching endlessly below, swallowing every reflection, as if the world has been hollowed from the inside.

The plane. The dream. My life. Every lever already pulled, each one locking the next into place. Only one remains beneath my hand.