Travel Anxiety

Sarah Connolly never used to have travel anxiety, in fact she was the polar opposite. The young woman was a world traveller, one that travelled often by land, sea and air. Of course there were a few bumps in the road. One time her train to Bangladesh got delayed for four hours and she was stranded with nothing to eat. Another time, Sarah thought she was being stalked by a creepy man in Australia, who she thought was some kind of serial killer, only for it turn to out he was a farmer that lived nearby the guest house she was staying at. A single lonely guy on a cruise liner named Jack, kept trying to impress and seduce her, she was alarmed by his forwardness and alerted the security guards of his behaviour, who then promptly booted him off the ship at the next port. Getting a taxi in many of the countries she visited often resulted in unwanted flirting from the drivers, as she was a very attractive young lady, who often got the attention of creeps. She even got lost in the middle of New York city one time, but she was actually glad to be climbing inside a yellow taxi cab straight to the airport that night. All and all, most of her experiences weren't too scary or dangerous, she just had the occasional bump in the road. However her confidence wasn't meant to last, for you see she came back home to England from Spain by plane one Winter's afternoon. It rained hard on the way back, heavy with thunder, skies black and grey. Worse than that, there was lightning too and Sarah was inside the passenger plane while all that was happening. The oxygen masks even fell from the plane's ceiling, she felt especially frightened when the typically calm and confident air stewards looked spooked too. Most of the passengers strapped themselves to their seats, those left standing on the way back and to from the bathrooms went flying down the aisle between all the rows of seats. Sarah never usually bothered to wear airplane seatbelts, but this time she tightened it round her stomach so fast it hurt! The plane shook uncontrollably and screams of panic deafened her ears. The windows looking outside cracked and split, as thin tunnels of air blew through the tiny gaps. The plane flipped over and over, spinning out of control.

"Stay calm! Stay calm!" The pilots over the radio told the rest of the plane, but nobody could. Sarah brought a dangling oxygen mask to her mouth, strapped it round her head and began breathing madly. It was awful, the rubber smelt like hot plastic and only made her want to puke. Yet, the mask was needed to help prevent her from hyperventilating. The plane then took a sudden nose dive, turbulence shaking violently, it seemed to be crashing.

"Everyone, stay calm! Stay calm!" The plane radio repeated. The thunder was louder than the lightning or heavy rain, screaming through the noise of everything else. Thrash! It roared, Thrash! Sarah dared to look outside the nearest window, there was nothing but darkness outside, with the sight of the black ocean drawing closer and closer, at an alarming rate!

"Please remain seated and stay calm!"

"We're going to die!" Sarah screamed louder than the plane radio.

"Don't say that!" The passenger beside her cried.

"Gaining altitude, gaining altitude!" The radio blurted out.

"Huh?!" Sarah gasped, looking outside the window, the boiling ocean came zooming outwards rather than inwards, she could feel the plane lift off, sending butterflies under her stomach. Some of the other passengers vomited, pulling off their oxygen masks to hurl all over the floor between their legs. Yet, the screams lowered in volume and the plane began to steady. The turbulence dulled significantly and the thunder eventually ceased. Things began to settle down and the weather calmed. Only a few people were left screaming (mostly confused little children and babies) but a lot of them had silenced, breathing hard and fast instead.

"That was a close one!" One of the air stewardesses said to her male coworker.

"I think I'm quitting after this, Chloe." The air steward replied, smiling weakly.

"Yeah, Connor. Me too!" She agreed, laughing ever so slightly.

"We're so sorry about that folks." Announced the pilots over the plane radio, "freak weather." They said, as if that was the punchline to a bad joke. Nobody laughed, nobody chuckled, not even a smirk. In fact, mostly everyone looked pissed off and there were still a lot of crying children. Then someone began clapping and screaming; "thank you! Dear god, thank you!" Soon the whole plane began cheering, praising the pilots for their bravery. Yet, Sarah was still frozen stiff, paralysed with shock; she still sat there wide eyed and trembling with nails dug sharply into the arm rests. When the plane finally landed (safely), Sarah had never been so glad to be back in miserable old rainy England. It was the greatest relief to finally step foot off that death trap, walking through border control on the way out was another slight frustration, but she got through it. After exiting London Airport, Sarah tried to get the bus home, but upon sitting down in one of those airplane-like seats, she screamed and ran out of the bus hysterically, suddenly overcome with pure frantic terror! She couldn't comprehend it, the woman had been all over the world, travelled on a hundred planes, a thousand buses, perhaps fifty boats and a million trains, but a public transport bus heading straight home terrified her? That just didn't make any sense. So Sarah recollected herself and called a taxi instead. Again, she felt incredibly nervous boarding this vehicle, but managed to push herself through it. Then she sat down and felt incredibly uneasy.

"Strap in." The taxi driver said, with a friendly smile. Sarah didn't want to, fastening any seatbelt only reminded her of the plane.

"No." She shook her head, "I don't want to."

"Lady, I ain't driving you anywhere unless you wear a seatbelt!"

"I can't!" Sarah cried, before fleeing the vehicle, running for her life in a fit of panic! Sarah, the once strong and confident world traveller had been ruined, the horrifying plane ride home from Spain proved so traumatising, that she couldn't even sit on the seat of a bicycle without needing to scream. It gave her this incurable travel anxiety that resulted in her never leaving the country ever again, then she was trapped forever in the miserable city of London. Some would say that's a fate far worse than death!