The People On The Plane

✈ 4: The People Who Were There

4: The People Who Were There

A few thousand miles across the Atlantic Ocean

22, December 2014. 5:53 PM

“You know,” Aspen says through sips of her coke. Carla had eventually convinced her to stop with the plane’s expensive champagne. “We should go and see the snobby ex-lead guy. Give him our condolences. And see how snobby he really is.”

“Just because we’re lekker people.”

“And what does that mean again?”

Carla smiles and tells her, “It means ‘good’, you emotionless crab.”

“Exactly!” And then as though she just noticed, Aspen adds in playful anger, “And no, I am not an emotionless crab. We’ve gone over this!”

Then they laugh. They had been doing that a lot. Talking then laughing; but not so loudly so that the attendant would glower at them again from the front of the plane.

But their laughing is cut off by the ping! sounding overhead from the seemingly invisible speakers. They cock their heads, aiming their ears upwards curiously. The silence stretches for a few moments before the captain’s civil voice echoes out.

“We are currently experiencing a few technical issues,” he announces. His tone seems as if he is offering free ice cream. “Passengers should remain calm and seated until further notice. Please do not remove your seatbelt until the sign is turned off.”

Instantly, several people start to gasp and mutter worriedly. Parents clutch their children tighter and plead with them to put their seatbelts on [or no sweets for the next week]. Children who are old enough to understand the captain’s smooth words looking around with horrorstruck expressions, a clear violation of the man’s orders. But Aspen and Carla simply look at each other, brows raised in confusion.

“What the hell?” Carla says, a small laugh attached to her words.

“I have no idea,” Aspen replies. Her gaze scans the crowd. “But I think these folks are overreacting a bit.”

Carla follows her gaze then turns back to Aspen and shakes her head. “I think they’re just frantic. I mean, they’ve probably never been in a situation like this.”

“But have we?” she asks then continues without an answer. “I think this is like one of the times when it seems like you don’t enough fuel but then it turns out that you have just enough to get there.”

“So a false alarm?”

“A false alarm,” Aspen confirms with a nod.

“Okay, then.”

And so they keep talking. But an hour passes and the plane keeps making sudden jumps in the air that disorientate them slightly and the seatbelt sign is still on and the passengers are getting more and more worried. A few extreme parents on the edge of tears and kissing their children on the cheek, saying that they love them, they do. Aspen can feel herself starting to worry, too, the emotion spreading through her head like vines across the surface and plaguing her thoughts.

She looks at Carla who is reading a magazine. “Ok, this is starting to scare me.”

“I am keeping myself distracted because if I’m scared, I scream and I’d rather not scream here and now,” Carla tells her, eyes still on the page in front of her.

“Fine,” Aspen says. “Let’s distract ourselves.”

“Twenty questions?”

“Sure.”

“What’s your middle name?”

“Jenna. What’s yours?”

“I don’t have one. What’s your favourite movie?”

“Clueless; ever since it premiered. Favourite book?”

“The Beginning of Everything.” Their gazes keeping slipping from each other’s, constantly sliding to the seatbelt sign and the people around them. Their words are rushed and faded out.

“Great choice.”

“Danke je.”

“We’re not really getting distracted here.”

“Not that way we wanted to, no.”

They fall silent. Aspen thinks that maybe this will be the end of her. Maybe she will die in an accident like her brother; but in a plane rather than a car. And then she thinks that maybe this isn’t so bad.

“Do you think we’ll die?” Aspen blinks rapidly at Carla’s voice, hardly comprehending her words. She stays that way for a few seconds before she opens her mouth to speak.

“I –“

She is suddenly interrupted by the sound of another ping!  They look up. The seatbelt sign is still glowing.

The man starts to speak but his voice isn’t as smooth as it was. It holds a hint of evident panic.

“I am distressed to inform that the plane’s engine has malfunctioned, and the plane will probably be crashing sometime in the next hour; middle of the Atlantic Ocean,” he declares. “Emergency procedures will start immediately.”

This will be the end of me, Aspen thinks.

You guys are seriously amazing like thank you for everything so far I can't even. Oh and the next part is the last then there's the epilogue.

And this is dedicated to Panda Guts again because she loves Carla as much as I do and she's such an absolute sweetheart. Also, I hope you do survive the ending. It isn't that atrocious.