My flight is the last one from the airport today. The only caf茅 place at the airport has already shut down an hour ago. You think to use this time for catching up on work. But no, you're at perhaps the only airport where wifi is still coming as scarcity, and you need to get your visa card out of your pocket to get to checking on emails. Never mind. It's not the end of the world.
Finally. The lights go on, and you start boarding. There are two lines; one for priority, one for regular. You pay for the priority because you need that extra bag and every three months you can afford to play VIP. But it's late; the two lines merge without anyone noticing it. You're not happy. But it's not the end of the world.
You access the staircase, and you are stopped again. Kids scream, people compete for the remaining places as if that particular left side corner would bring anyone closer to home. You close your eyes and imagine you're in your favorite place.
That place isn't here...
The crowd moves, and people march over each other again as if there would be a hunger game going on. Maybe you missed it as you find no reason to step over that mother with three children. Then the rush suddenly stops again. This time, you are collected on the asphalt as fallen stamps from a stamp book. They organize you one by one until you are too many, and they just organize your collectively, as the mass. You look up to the sky as your only escape from the mass; as your only way to yearn for some space. You could see the stars, but you are standing under a light, so the it takes away your liberating universe.
You stand there for another ten minutes when you reach for your phone hoping for a last resort for something good. You dial up your boyfriend. He picks up, and you instantly feel better. At the very same moment, the crowd starts its desperate march again. Backpack on your back, phone in your right hand, and you lift your luggage with your left. You start marching after the crowd.
It's unusually warm, here; in the place where summer never comes.
You reach the stairs leading up to your plane, and you know that within a few minutes you can lay back and start your flight already. You spent four hours at this airport; the airport where nothing happens. Of course, nowadays, this nothing is a good thing. I get that. There is yet another queue, and you are on the line both with your boyfriend on your phone and with the mass around you.
Before you step into the body of the plane, they suddenly stop again. And at that moment it happens: your brain sees everything a second ahead of reality. Your mind sees its happening and then it happens: your phone slips from your hand. It touches ground in front of your feet at the top of the stairs. And you know it's happening, but your body doesn't catch up.
But then in that second it happens: your phone flips over its edge and finds that tiny line between the stairs and the airplane, and with two further flips you see it falling. Actually, it doesn't even fall anymore, it flies. You were supposed to be flying by this time, and yet, you stand on the ground, and your phone...well, your phone just flies.
You're staring at your phone in distant. The mass is staring at you from close. All this happens in a slow motion just like on the screens in the good old Hollywood movies. And then your phone touches the ground. 5 meters beneath you.
It happened. The movie ended. The mass stops staring at you and marches over. You step into the airplane and say hi to the stewards. You don't even blink. What for? - you ask without words. It happened.
"Can you please help me?"
"Yes. What can I do for you?"
"My phone fell under the plane. Can you please pick it up?" (Or its pieces I whisper after her)
The crowd seems endless, and they just pass by ignoring me while my brain gets out of its fog. My first and only reaction was: how am I gonna work without a phone?
A few minutes later she comes back. She looks at me, but I can't read her face.
"Did it break fully?"
"Not even a scratch!"
She is smiling. I'm speechless. The mass doesn't seem to care.
I walk to my place. I sit down. And suddenly I forget the delay, the crowd, the cafe closing on me, the screaming kids, the marching, the phone, and everything that has happened during the day.
I'm just smiling, and the only thing I can't understand is how did my mind see this whole sooner than it happened? And if it did see it, how couldn't my body react?
#3 Lisa, thank you so much for reading. Yay, I feel you: I have a bracelet I am always wearing when flying. You story is funny when looking back but I'm sure you had some excitement :)
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Comments
Virag馃悵 G.
7 years ago #3
Lisa, thank you so much for reading. Yay, I feel you: I have a bracelet I am always wearing when flying. You story is funny when looking back but I'm sure you had some excitement :)
Virag馃悵 G.
7 years ago #2
Deb Helfrich thank you so much for reading. And yes, I'm still amazed myself ;)
Virag馃悵 G.
7 years ago #1
Thanks for reading :) You know I still have no idea how my phone survived 7 meter free-fall but it was a certain sign to switch perspectives :)