Flight

It was a crowded flight, and I was grateful that I’d booked a first class ticket - grateful until I met my seatmate, a small boy with chocolate smeared across his face who immediately spilled a cup of apple juice into my handbag.

“I’m so incredibly sorry,” his mother said as she took a towel from the flight attendant and began frantically wiping juice from the armrest and seat. “He’s usually very good on flights, I promise you. I’m hoping he’ll sleep.”

I travel for work often, and so I am aware that a child’s airplane nap is usually preceded by at least an hour of screaming protest. I tried my best to smile at the young woman; I know I failed miserably.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

I opened my mouth to tell her, and that was when the vision hit me, flashing before my eyes the way they always did.

The world around me faded away in an instant, and all I could see was the plane - our plane - plummeting toward the earth below.

*****

The first time I ever had a vision, I was a child, playing at the playground with a few friends, our mothers chatting nearby. We were playing Hide and Seek, and I was the Seeker.

“Ready or not,” I called, uncovering my eyes. “Here I -”

It was always mid-sentence when a vision would occur. That first time, it was an image of one of my small friends flying through the air and crashing into the ground. It, of course, terrified me. I began to cry, and my mother rushed to my side. Moments later, in the midst of the chaos and confusion, the friend from my vision wandered out into a nearby road and was hit by a car. She was killed instantly. I didn’t see the accident happen, but I heard one of the parents describe it later that week, and knew that what I’d seen wasn’t imagination.

It was the future. Minutes before the accident, I’d had a vision of the future.

*****

I panicked.

I stood up, running toward the entranceway to the plane. Clearly, my brain wasn’t working. We were already in motion, the plane moving toward the runway for takeoff.

“Ma’am? Ma’am!” the flight attendant said, taking my arm, gently but firmly. “You need to return to your seat. We’re about to take off.”

*****

That first time, I didn’t tell my mother what I’d seen. Once they started, the visions occurred every few months, always a flash of something that was going to happen within the next few hours of my life. The visions weren’t always as horrific or consequential as my first; one time, I saw myself winning the school spelling bee an hour before I spelled the winning word.

It wasn’t until one of my older brother Todd’s soccer games, a year after my first vision, that my mother noticed what was happening. The rest of the world faded to black and I saw something - a collision on the field and a player on the opposing team writhing in pain on the grass, holding his leg. A moment after the vision faded, my mother was at my side.

“What did you see?” she asked.

I looked at her, surprised. “But what -”

“You saw something,” she said.

I nodded, filled with relief to be able to tell someone. I whispered to her the details of my vision; it was halftime, so the field was empty, but I could see the boy on the other team - the one who was going to hurt his leg - seated on his team’s bench.

My mother nodded. “It used to happen to me, too,” she said quietly. “The visions. I haven’t had them for a long time.” She stood and walked away from me from purpose, and I felt a rush of calm, relieved to not be managing the situation alone.

*****

I stared at the flight attendant as she held my arm and guided me back to my seat. She helped me buckle my seatbelt and returned to her own seat a mere moment before the plane took off.

Off and away.

The final flight for this plane, for the flight attendant, for me - for every living soul on that plane.

The little boy beside me was an angel during takeoff, squealing and giggling adorably. His mother buried her face in his air. I could sense her relief; she was glad that the child was calm and happy.

“You’re travelling alone?” I asked her, my voice shaking a little.

The woman shook her head. “My husband is back in coach,” she said. “The front row. We had a mix-up with our flight and ended up separated. He threw a fit about it back at the airport, but I don’t mind; it’s a short flight.”

I gazed at the little boy. “Perhaps I can switch seats with your husband,” I said. “So that you all can sit together.”

“I couldn’t ask you to -”

“It’s not a problem,” I said quietly. It wasn’t. I gathered my things and found the young father in coach as soon as the seatbelt sign turned off. I could see the little family reunite from my own seat on the aisle, and I’d never felt so many feelings at once - grief, pride, jealousy, satisfaction. They were about to die - but they were together, and I’d made that happen.

If only there was more I could do.

*****

That day at the soccer game, I had thought that when my mother left me, she was going to intervene - to tell that young man’s coach or parent that he needed to be pulled off the field to avoid injury.

She did not.

The boy collided with another player, screamed for a long time, and was transported away in an ambulance. We’d later learn that he’d broken his leg.

“Why didn’t you stop it?” I asked my mother that evening as she tucked me into bed. I was furious with her, and had been all day; it was my first chance to tell her.

“We can’t,” she told me. “Your grandmother - she had the visions, too - she told me that we couldn’t. I didn’t believe her at first.”

I digested this information. I was eight years old; my nana had died the year before. “Why do you believe her now?”

My mother’s face darkened. “I tried, once,” she said. “To change what would happen.”

“What happened?” I asked.

I rarely saw my mother show emotion, but that day, I watched as she fought back tears.

“It didn’t work,” she said softly.

*****

I settled into my new seat. It was an aisle seat in the front row of coach, plenty of leg room. My seatmate, a twentysomething girl, was scribbling in a notebook, her face tight.

Perhaps I should have minded my own business. I could have sat back, relaxed, and simply waited for what was to come.

I was about to die, after all. This was a time when I could sit back and reflect about my life - the last time I’d ever be able to do that.

But I read what the girl was writing.

When will I start believing in myself?

Without thinking, I placed my hand over hers.

“Now, honey,” I said. She looked up at me, startled, but not angry. “You’re going to start believing in yourself now.”

*****

I couldn’t simply trust my mother. I knew I needed to test it - test my power to change the visions.

I took the chance when I had a vision of my father dying. I was fifteen years old, and in the flash, I saw it clearly - my father losing control on his motorcycle around a tight curve and running off the road, smashing into a tree.

All I did was try. I went to my father and begged him to take a break - not to ride. I told him something terrible might happen, and that I’d seen it.

He didn’t believe me, and when it happened, it was not what I’d envisioned. My father did run off the road - but my brother Todd, who’d decided to go along for the ride, did as well. We lost them both in the same moment.

*****

After speaking with the woman beside me for a few tearful minutes, I realized that she, too, had been separated from the person she was travelling with.

“My boyfriend,” she said. “He’s a few rows back.” She pointed and a handsome young man waved at us, smiling.

I unbuckled my seat and gathered my belongings.

“You don’t have to do that,” the woman said, though I could tell from her voice she was glad to have me switch seats. “I really - I’m so thankful to you.”

I smiled. It had an impact on her, it seemed, to have a complete stranger tell her that she was worthy of love and belonging. “I’m thankful to you, too.”

*****

Never again had I tried to alter what I’d seen. I never told my mother what I’d done - how my attempt to change the vision had wrecked our family doubly. I thought of that now, as I stared at the people around me, wishing desperately that I could tell someone, that I could prevent all of our fate.

I found my new seat - a middle seat, climbing over a grumpy older gentleman.

“Just trying to relax and mind my own business,” he said, muttering obscenities under his breath.

Once I settled, I smiled at him. “You get to choose what upsets you, sir,” I said quietly. “Do you want to spend the rest of the flight being angry at me?”

I don’t know why he listened. There must be something that happens to people who are about to die - an openness, a willingness, an authenticity that’s missing from the rest of our lives. I watched as his face fell, as he became more peaceful. “I don’t,” he said quietly.

I nodded. “I know you don’t.”

I had no idea when it would happen, and that should have been unsettling for me. But sometimes the complete lack of knowing brings a kind of peace of its own.

Be with your family. Believe in yourself. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

These were the messages I wished I could scream and shout to everyone on the flight, everyone in the world. Because none of us knew how long we had, and if we knew, wouldn’t we follow that advice?

That, and one more thing. We’d ask for what we wanted and needed.

On my other side, there was a young man, his eyes closed, head leaning back on his seat. He wore headphones and clearly hadn’t been disturbed by my conversation with the older man sitting in the aisle seat.

I tapped him, and his eyes popped open.

“Do you think,” I asked gently, “we could switch seats? Even just for a few minutes?”

He looked surprised, but nodded at once. We shuffled around - I bumped the man in the aisle seat, but he smiled, forgiving me instantly - and I sat in the window seat.

I gazed out the window at the world below. It was a beautiful day.

I was grateful to be alive.