The Pilot’s Gamble: How It Ends

[This is the Conclusion of a Two-Part Short Story. Click Here for Part One.]

A man about my age overhears my arrangements and approaches. “You were on the Minneapolis flight that was cancelled? Me too. I’m renting a car from Wisconsin if you’d like to ride with me.”

I counter. “My friends are picking me up in Wisconsin. We can take you to Minneapolis and you won’t need your rental car.”

We agree. He makes a call and when it starts not going so well he walks a few steps just out of earshot. I sit down on the floor to wait with our other cancellees, Zip Hoodie Girl, Laptop Man, and Headphones Fella. When Rental Car Guy returns, he apologetically tells me that his fiancée doesn’t think it’s a safe idea to travel with strangers. I’m relieved because I don’t actually want to drive to Minneapolis, which is a little over an hour out of the way--one way. We’d still have to return. Rental Car Guy joins my makeshift group sitting on the floor and we all hunker down to wait.

We make occasional conversation and everything is status quo as they call our flight and we get settled onto our plane.

We have one middle aisle and two seats on either side of it and maybe twenty rows total. I sit down, buckle up, and they close the doors. And that’s when the pilot comes over the loudspeaker, “Folks, we’re heading into the eye teeth of a storm. We just flew through it on our way here. It’s considerable. But we’ll make it.” And then he goes into the various services that would normally be available but won’t be on this flight because the attendants will need to buckle up to stay safe. I’m not really listening because all I heard was eye teeth and storm and I’m replaying the moment the flight attendant locked us into this death trap. Fly through a storm? No, thank you. Even if we make it, I’ll be such a spaz during the whole thing that I personally may not make it. I’ve been on a lot of flights and I’ve come a long way, literally (did you catch that?) in calming my nervous flyer internal hysterics, but a storm is asking too much of me. And who says eye teeth, anyway? I stare at the door, willing it to reopen. My mind wont’ even shout Craap anymore. This is so much worse. We’re trapped.

I don’t know where any of my new traveler friends are sitting. I can’t bring myself to look around and see their faces or to let them see the terror on mine.

We take off, and all is okay at first. But soon the lights dim to a weird reddish-brown and I seem to be looking at my knees. I’m not looking down. The plane feels as though it’s flying with its nose up, so as I sit upright and stare straight ahead, my knees are in my direct view.

I’m in the aisle seat. The engine is so loud, as if we have to overpower this storm. There’s turbulence, of course there’s turbulence, but I just stay as calm-looking as I can on the outside as internally I count the years I’m losing off my life due to this stress. I close my eyes but that awakens my other senses, which is worse, so I open my eyes and just stare at my knees.

The first time I flew overseas, by myself no less, the man seated beside me said, “This is a good pilot. Very good pilot.”

I said, “How do you know?”

He said, “We’re not on the ceiling.” Then he’d look out the window and say, “Look at all them hardwoods.” Turns out, he owned a lumber company in the southern U.S. and was traveling to the U.K. to golf. I think of him now and about good pilots and I think light thoughts, light thoughts, light thoughts. Everything is reddish brown.

After an hour of this, and likely a decade off my life, the lights return to normal and the engine isn’t so loud. We level out and I can see out one of the windows on the other side of the aisle and coppery-colored lights are visible on the ground in the darkness. The storm is behind us.

I’m relieved, but still too terrified to move.

We land and the lights come on and I breathe. I don’t remember any applause when we landed, but we should have. That was great flying. The pilot does tell us the airport is closing. Ours was the last flight they let in.

We gather our scanty things and enter the terminal. Many lights are off. The other passengers and I shuffle, zombielike, toward the only open baggage claim. Some of them even have luggage since this was their original flight. My luggage is still checked to go to Minneapolis, so I keep shuffling past baggage claim. My ride is nowhere in sight. I send a text. My friends are still 45 minutes out. Sheesh.

I walk toward the main entrance where I find a wide, marble staircase and I’m able to see out the abundant windows to the airport drive outside. I sit down and wonder who would put such a beautiful staircase in an airport. Do people actually walk up and down these stairs, banging their luggage on them? They don’t even look real to me but I’m definitely sitting on them.

One by one, my fellow travelers make their way outside to waiting cars. Rental Car Guy waves at me as he heads out. We wish each other luck.

Everything about this airport is saying Exit Now Please. Everything except these stairs. And I’m worried that if I go outside to wait, the doors will lock and I’ll be stuck outside.

I’m feeling pretty beat. Losing years off your life can do that to a person. I wonder which years are gone now and I think about bargaining—maybe I can mentally let go of some bad years in exchange for that flight. I think back but I don’t have any to spare. I have some definite bad memories (who doesn’t?), but those all got me here. I decide that whatever years I shed on that flight must be future ones. Maybe one day I’ll be in a position to negotiate them back.

I curl up in a little ball, my chin on my knees. I can hear machinery or maybe large fans off in the distance and I realize that the airport music has been turned off. Eventually a janitor walks by me and nods a hello in my direction. I nod back apologetically for still being here. I think we’re the only two people in this entire darkening airport.

And finally, after what seems like another lifetime, headlights are visible coming up the airport road. The spell is broken; my friends have arrived!

I wait to make absolutely sure it’s them and then I exit the dark safety of the airport. I give hugs and thanks all around, happy to see familiar faces.

We drive back to Rochester and I tell them about my adventure and I listen to their stories about the gas station and Sam’s mom’s phone call that delayed them.

And to this day, when things get tough, I think about that airport staircase. I think about that staircase and the janitor and the reddish-brown darkness and I feel very certain that I did not survive that flight.