"Do you think we'll crash?!" bubbled up a voice from the pile of magazines, headphone wiring and puffy parka material in an adjacent seat.
With the erratic movements of the plane and the sheer volume of everything currently happening, whether the question was directed at me personally, or another neighbour on the flight, or the whole immediate listening world in general was difficult to determine, but once I began to think about it, I realized that the who part of it didn't really matter in the least. The dehumanizing processes and precautions, the cattle-like shuffling and compressions of airline travel were actions which had the unforeseen consequence of blurring the boundaries between us and our individual lives. For this contained sequence of moments we are no longer the unique beings we think we are, with our own wants and needs, dreams and fears, but we come closest to merging into one being with all of those previously disparate parts all striving to be finished, to be safe, to be THERE.
As the anxious waiting for this series of jolts and shocks to end continued on for us, the atavistic fear in the question began to spread rapidly, as if you could see the next person in the line being tapped on the shoulder by it, and the fear seep into them like a cold oil. It seems that I was not the only one who believed that airplanes could only actually fly when supported by the belief of the passengers that they could actually do so. Something below our senses, some primitive piece of us that tells a flock of birds how to turn at the same moment, or a herd to flee an as yet unseen predator was infecting everyone within earshot of the original question.
Before I could respond myself, by one of the many thousands of unnoticed accidents and coincidences that pass through our lives each day, my eyes happened to lock with a person across the aisle, and to my surprise, I saw none of this fear there at all, but instead a serene calm and maybe just the hint of a relaxed smile. Lock a rock interrupting a wave, in that moment it was all I could do to not laugh out loud in relief. There for anyone to see was the part of us that struggles against this legacy of our DNA and who we are programmed to be. This was the part of us that denies inevitability. A reaction perhaps no less irrational than instinct, but an irrationality unique to each of us.
Eventually the airplane arrived into an area of calmer air, I turned to the pile of person and stuff in the adjacent seat and with that same relaxed smile as I saw before said, "yes, inevitably".
Misha
From the old divan, Misha looked out into the whiteness beyond the window and wondered how on earth he had arrived here. Not so very long ago, he had been a tailor's apprentice in Sergeevka. That life had held simple promises of advancement when the old man retired, and with that advancement other doors of opportunity would surely have opened as well. Now, when he stopped for this moment to consider his life, he realized that things had become different indeed. Looking back into the room things were, if possible, more promising than he had ever imagined his life becoming, but at the same time, he had become aware that this promise, had not in fact made his life any easier.
Reaching for the vodka and turning down the lamp, Misha closed his eyes to the scaleless emptiness outside and turned instead to an inner emptiness, wondering as he had begun to do, how it could have become so large without his even knowing quite where it had come from. It was now a little more than eight years from the day that the old man took him on as his apprentice. His parents, who had developed some awkward relationships with the authorities were pleased with the arrangement. While tailoring was not as prestigious as some of the other opportunities normally available to someone of his upbringing and education, it was at least a direction less likely to land one in any political difficulties the times were fraught with either. Most of the time, Misha realized he had been basically happy with the arrangement as well. He had not yet arrived at a point where his life had taken on any kind of definite shape, and for the time being, this position provided some degree of order and some creativity in his life.
