To The Window

 

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To the Window

I’d forgotten the amount of times my ears had popped on the flight. It was too many considering what a short distance I was traversing.

The plane was uncomfortable, in only a way a budget airline can manage. The sky was dark, and my tiredness wanted to kick-in. I wasn’t far from feeling wretched.

When I fell asleep, for I must have done in order to dream, there was no one in any of the seats in the middle. The window seats were taken, as were the aisle seats, of which I was one of the takers, but in-between us, all the way down the plane, no one sat.

I didn’t wake, I know I couldn’t have. I merely thought I’d woken up. There was a jolt, and I opened my eyes. Only, of course, there couldn’t have been a jolt, and I couldn’t have opened my eyes.

“Hello,” said the woman next to me, sitting between me and the sleeping older lady in the window seat.

I was still feeling dazed, so I said, “Hello,” in return. “I’m sorry if I was snoring. I usually snore.”

The woman next to me shook her head. “You weren’t snoring,” she said. She looked at me a moment more, then returned to reading her book. I’m assuming she returned to reading her book, because I don’t know if she had been reading it in the first place. The fact that it was open in her hand was enough of a guide for me to assume she had been.

I blinked a few times, still feeling sleepy. Of course, I was asleep still, but I didn’t know that.

I couldn’t remember watching the safety briefing, and that worried me a little. I always make sure I watch the safety talk as I know, however many times I hear it, it won’t stay in my head. I know the life jacket is under the seat, but how do I secure it? And what if it doesn’t inflate?

“Did they do the safety talk?” I ask the woman who couldn’t have been beside me.

“Yes, they did,” she replied. “Don’t worry if you missed it. I’ll help you.”

I nodded at this strange comment, but only found it strange afterwards.

When I looked down the plane, I was sitting almost in the back row, I saw that all the seats were now filled. I didn’t think anything of it. The plane was full. The airline was really making their profit today.

The lady beside me turned the page of her book. I tried to see what it was, but it was hard to see the cover or the words inside. I didn’t want to appear rude.

“Hello, this is your captain speaking,” came the voice over speakers. I looked up to try and see the speaker, but I couldn’t. It was just a disembodied voice. It’s funny what we take for granted.

“We are beginning our descent,” she continued. “And we’ll be landing on time.”

The was a ‘bong’ noise, and the seat-belt sign came on. I looked up at it.

“That’s quite early,” I yawned to no-one. I checked my belt, and it was still fastened.

The lady beside me put her arm up and touched the ‘Call Attendant’ button on the panel above us.

My ears went dull again as the pressure changed. I swallowed a few times, but it was difficult to clear.

The steward appeared. I didn’t remember seeing him when I boarded, but I was tired. It had been a long day.

“How can I help?” the steward asked.

“Which way?” the woman asked. At least, that’s what I think she asked. My ears were getting worse.

“I’ll check with the captain,” he said.

“Do you have a drink I could have?” I asked the steward, but he couldn’t have heard me, as he walked away towards the front of the plane.

“What do you mean, which way?” I asked the woman. She smiled at me kindly and turned another page.

It was around then that I remembered there hadn’t been anyone in the middle seat, not beside me, or anywhere else in the plane.

“Um,” I started. “When did you sit down?”

She smiled again. “I got on before you did. I was one of the first to get on.”

“I... don’t remember seeing you.”

“You were tired. Everyone’s always tired on these flights.”

I nodded but didn’t understand why I nodded.

The steward returned and leaned over me.

“To the window,” he said.

“Very well,” she replied. At least I think she did.

The steward leaned backwards, and I said to him again, “Do you have a drink I can have?”

He heard me this time. It was obvious. He looked straight at me. He had a beard, I remember that. He had a beard, but the other features are lost.

He looked back at the woman in the middle seat and laughed. Then he left.

“Did I say something funny?” I asked, slightly hurt.

“People always do,” she replied. “People are always so predictable.”

“What does he mean, ‘to the window’?”

I was looking at the woman, had continued to look at her for several moments, but now she was reading her book again. She turned a page.

She closed her book and put it in the pouch in the seat in front. Then she undid her seat-belt.

I’m not one to care, not usually, but I felt hurt, and I wanted to say something.

“The seat-belt sign is still on,” I told her.

“Yes.”

“But it means it should be done-up.”

She looked at me for a moment. Then, and I was powerless to stop her, she raised her hand and brushed my face. I felt something, something delicate, and strangely cold.

“That’s what it means to you,” she said.

There was another jolt, which coincided with an inhale of breath from the woman in the window seat. As I watched, the woman next to me seemed to crumple up. The woman in the window seat inhaled still, and the woman next to me became smaller, and was suddenly sucked in through the woman’s mouth.

I looked down the plane. There were no people sitting in the middle seats. I watched the woman by the window, she appeared to be stuck inhaling, but no air was going into her mouth. I couldn’t see the people in front of me, but if I stretched, I could see the woman in the window seat behind me, and she was also in the same position, mouth open, chest expanded.

One more jolt, a big one, and suddenly the window seat women began to breathe again. They slumped back into their seats.

I wonder when it was that I woke up. If it was one of the jolts, if they were real, I couldn’t say which one it was. The woman by the window stirred and opened her eyes. She looked at the back of her hands, and then the front. It was an odd gesture.

The woman by the window turned and looked at me.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “I’m okay.”

I looked away, confused. That was when I saw the book in the pouch of the front seat. The book the woman who’d been beside me had been reading.

The woman by the window followed my gaze. She reached over, put her hand on the book, and pulled it to her.

She riffled through the pages, saying under her breath, but loud enough that I could hear, “Now, where was I?”

She stopped at a page and looked at me. She turned a page.

I waited to see what would be said next. I didn’t know. There was something that should be said, but I wasn’t sure I knew what it was.

I breathed in and opened my mouth to speak. She put her index finger of her right hand to her lips and shook her head.

“To the window,” I whispered.

“To the window,” she replied, and looked away.

 

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