Turbulence

An experimental piece in the same vein as "Mile High".

 

Stepping out that terminal first thing and seeing him take a pull off that cigarette… My stomach would lurch far and fast. Smoke curling around his breath like lights on an evergreen. I’d wish that I didn’t know him. I had spent four hours trying to rock against turbulence so that our knees would not accidentally bump. When they had though, he had leaned into it, making my nervous smile tick against the whirring glass. My rolling eyes would betray me and he’d titter like he knew I would do that.

            He didn’t know me.

            He tried to get close. I pretended to want something out of my surrounding luggage. Really, all I was carrying was a hairbrush and a library of H. P. Lovecraft. I was wearing everything else, but I ruffled through every one of my five bags slowly, swaying on a big jet airliner sifting through clouds. That made me want to sit still again. I quickly faked a look of self-anger

            (oh no think like you’ve left something behind oh no)

            and thumped into the barrel of my seat.

            “First time flying,” My seatmate predicted from the side of his mouth.

            “No.”

            Refusing to look outside, I tapped my nails on the fold-out tray across my lap. Red paint chips flitted across its pitted surface in a maelstrom. I gave up. I looked. It was snowing outside. I could see the flakes slap across my seat’s window

            (why did you sit here why why why)

            and they stuck there like wet paper, refusing to melt. How could they dissipate into nothing when they were stuck levitating miles above home?

            (talk get out of your head talk)

            “This is my second time.”

            The guy nodded, not looking at me.

“I don’t think it gets any better.”

I knew he wasn’t listening. But this wasn’t for his benefit. If he was fine with flying thousands of feet in the air, that was his problem. I had to talk and damned if he wasn’t going to be my microphone.

“I’m Julie,” I testified. I went back on thinking about offering my hand. That seemed too intimate. And I didn’t like this guy. And he was busying himself by pulling out Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comic books out of his duffel bag. The airline tag attached to it was scribbled over and declared in bold, spidery letters:

EVERETT

“Ah.”

He didn’t care. That was okay. I felt okay with that. He had to be in mid-twenties or something. But comic books. Seriously, dude? He looked like a collector. The lean cheeks, the squinty eyes, red hair mussed into a fluffy pompadour. He could’ve screamed Art Major with a concentration in Star Trek conventions. If there was air to scream.

“We will be arriving in fifteen minutes.”

I jumped away from the intercom.

Rick put up a finger at a passing flight attendant.

“Rum and coke.”

The atmosphere thickened in our row. Time stressed considerably.

Fifteen minutes? That was one-sixth of the flight. Flying from Zenith in Washington State to Madison, Wisconsin had been worse. It had been hell. I held myself up in the jet’s bathroom for three hours of the four. But this trip seemed worse, somehow. I felt tricked and in a jam. Only an hour and half to get from Chicago to Harrisburg. How life was fair in the stupidest things. I knew I couldn’t get far enough from Washington though, so I kept on flying. No matter how much I hated it. No matter.

(come and find you know where you are is going to get you)

I ran a shaking hand across my face.

“Sound just like my father—”

“What is your problem?”

I blanched.

“What?”

“What kind of offhand comment was that?”

Everett’s eyes drove into me like I had just slapped him across the mouth. His rum and coke sat empty of even ice on his tray.

Snorting like a steroid abuser, he waved his arms around his head.

 “’You sound like my father.’—I don’t need this, I really don’t!”

            “I’m sorry,” I said, not knowing what I did. He must’ve drunk too fast. Which was beyond me. Why would anyone want to drink anything that tasted like battery acid?

            “Yeah.” He swirled his glass around in his hand though there was nothing in it.

            It was silent again and it was unnerving. I could feel the tilt of the world.

“What’s in Harrisburg?”

“Nothing, hun.” He was staring at his hand on the glass. I could see the little muscles in his fingers going to work as he clenched, unclenched, clenched it. I was afraid it was going to explode. “A big whole lot of nothing at all.”

“There’s nothing for me there either.”

“Then why are you packing all this crap? You aren’t a runaway, are ya?”

“I don’t really expect you to care.”
            “Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah.”

He stared back at his hands on the glass.

We were strangers trapped on a metal bird, both going to a place we didn’t want to be but couldn’t help. It was silly. We paid for the tickets. This was a world made of our choices and we just left things to run their own courses. I didn’t like Everett, but I didn’t know him. I wasn’t curious though, y’know, about him. Which I think works. He wasn’t curious about me either, so we had a mutual understanding.

The world turned abruptly and we were falling to earth. No one could tell me that it was under control because I felt trapped and felt death creeping around my throat like a turtleneck but my fingers looped around my neck and I felt that I was only wearing one. But how could I be safe if I felt I was dying? I looked over to Everett and he looked like he was praying. Or maybe he spoke in tongues.

Turbulence rocked us and I leaned into him.

“Oh, I don’t like this,” he crowed.

“I don’t like this at all,” I said as I searched for his hand, my eyes shut tight against the cold.