Taking Flight

"The land looked so flat from above," I found myself thinking as my eyes peered out the window at the grasslands below. Everything looked so small in comparison. Of course everything would look so small when comparing it to being tens of thousands of feet in the air, wouldn't it? God. I had to have spelled the distance out. Letting out a short breath, I closed the shade about halfway and leaned back in my seat. The screen in front of me had a map of our location playing on an endless loop. Most people would probably prefer to choose from the great selections of in-flight movies they advertised as we boarded, but for some (odd) reason I preferred this. Although I have a minor fear of heights, I also have a fear of flying... so it's a little bit calming being able to know where we are exactly in the sky. Or even where exactly we'd be located if we were to be shown a map of the country. Although, I won't lie. Sometimes the map is a nightmare; especially when that little plane icon starts to fly above a body of water.

My eyes scanned the flight once more. Everyone seemed to be packed together like sardines. Kind of weird to think of an airline being so okay to continuing to pack all of us this close together considering how we all just endured an entire pandemic together. Or maybe the airline thought that maybe packing us all up tightly like a bunch of sardines could possibly help us in the long run, when the plane goes crashing down towards the Earth at a million miles per hour. God. There I go again. Making so much out of so little. Plane crashes don't even happen as often as the media makes it seem. Why would I be so terrified of something that was so rare? Maybe. No. Don't even think about it. Well. Maybe. It can't not happen. Can it? A plane is a heavy piece of metal floating in the sky, running on just fire or gas, or whatever it is they run planes on. I leaned myself back into my seat as my eyes continued to jot about the plane.

If you think about it... we all put way too much confidence into a person we've never met. How certain are we that a pilot is actually well-trained in their field? Yeah. Of course they're educated. Flight schools do exist for a reason. But we all put so much faith in a single person who, for all we know, could've barely passed flight school. I don't know. Millions of pilots out there in the world, and for all we know we could've got the one person who almost flunked out. What if we picked the airline who was extremely dense when it came to hiring pilots, that they didn't pay attention to the flunkie who had applied for the job?

My eyes jotted around the cabin once more. Up in the front was a mother bouncing her baby girl on her knee. The young girl was giggly and smiley, almost in a trance, as her mother bounced her up and down while making silly little faces at her in the process. Across from them sat a pristine looking gentleman, wearing an unwrinkled suit jacket with a pair of very nice slacks, cowering over a small laptop as he looked as concentrated as ever. Probably just trying to complete his works before a serious deadline. A couple rows behind him sat two fathers and their young daughter. One father looked to be extremely nervous, cowering over the young girl as she was resting her head on her other father, who was quietly reading a magazine. A few rows in front of me sat a young girl, presumably alone, reading some chapter book and constantly buzzing the flight attendant over for help every ten minutes. My eyes scanned my own row. Sitting next to me was some elderly woman knitting together some kind of scarf as her pup laid calmly at her feet. I was able to read emotional support on the dogs vest as the woman boarded earlier, but honestly... I had no idea how legitimate the dog was. Although, the pup was pretty cute... so I didn't mind it at all. On the end of the aisle sat a somewhat younger gentleman. Younger than the lady next to me, but probably older than I was. Personally, the gentleman got up to use the bathroom so often, I was glad he was seated on the end of our row.

The seatbelt sign lit up above our heads. A small buzz sounded before the pilot said onto the intercom, "We are expecting some turbulence, but it shouldn't last us too long. The seatbelt fastened light has just went on so make sure to remain seated until it turns off again."

Shit.