It Feels Like a Movie

The moment the pilot realises the plane is going to crash is one of quiet resolve. He quickly comes to terms with his demons, failings and regrets in life before turning to his younger co pilot and describing the limbs of the women he will never sleep with.

He presses the small red button to the left of the pressure gauge and the music of a recognisable classical song floods the plane. The chords swell like marshmallows in a microwave expanding from premium to economy class, filling  the ears of the nearly dead.

The pale and robust head of the cabin crew sighs like a punctured balloon. Oh well, he thinks, he had a good run. He fell in love once and had his photo taken on top of some Aztec ruins his father told him about as a child.

I catch his eye and I realise this sudden explosion of music is something other then a beautiful interlude marking the halfway point in our journey. It is the airlines signature swan song. I lean back in my chair and wonder if this will finally induce relaxation within me on what has been an otherwise long and tedious plane journey.

On this plane I ate chicken and bacon and potatoes, drank whisky and wine and finished half a chocolate moose. I allowed myself every potato because the portion seemed so small but I can feel the fat seeping through me like the oil dripping off last night’s farewell bread. Not that it matters now anyway.

I so hoped the mentality you gifted me would stick before my untimely death. You called me an athlete and I wanted to imagine myself as one so I could feel better prepared. This big group of strangers scares me and there is no leg room and the eyes of the man next to me… I did not enjoy being dry skinned window-shopping for him. I suddenly feel guilty about my undone to do list. It flows like the commercial overtures of this, my last piece of music. 

If this plane is crashing what would you know?

The pilot is loosening his grip on the steering wheel now and the pale blue eyes of the head of the cabin crew whose eyes sort mine sits with his head between his legs. But I do not follow suit as I want my death to be an inconvenience and I want them to struggle to find my head.