Changers

19. The Flight

The familiar roar of the engine greeted us at the gap between the end of the tunnel and the airplane, striking me with the realization that we were boarding an airplane with no way of getting off. A brief sense of claustrophobia came and passed just as quickly. I forced myself to focus.

The plane was of customary size for a trans-provincial flight. The seats were organized in two columns and in sets of three. Our seats were near the front. It only took us five seconds to find them, ducking our heads inconspicuously as we sat down. Bellona squeezed into the middle seat between me and Luis.

"Did you see where Caroline sat down?" Luis whispered to me.

"I didn't."

"I can help with that," Bellona said from between us. "I just need to visualize the kind of bag she was carrying with her."

"She had a purple carry-on," I prompted while maintaining my low whisper.

"I'm just going to make it rattle in the overhead compartment," she said in her child-like voice.

"Won't that be suspicious? Imagine randomly hearing a bag moving above you," Luis said, looking at me worriedly.

"It won't be if it's in her lap and it falls," Bellona said,

"I see," Luis said, maintaining his hesitant tone.

"Well," I said, "either way. We need to know where she is."

"Ok, let's do it. I'll look down the aisle to pinpoint where she'll be. Bellona, you let me know before you start doing your mental magic."

Bellona closed her eyes. Moments later, we heard a loud thud coming from somewhere behind us. A few seconds passed.

Luis turned his head around. "She's eleven rows behind us."

"What do we do now?" Bellona asked.

"We have to wait," I said. But in truth, it was the blind leading the blind.

The passengers in the plane progressively settled in. The flight attendants quickly whizzed through their safety protocol presentations and the engine began to roar. The plane took off, ascending into the sky.

We soared up higher and higher, distancing ourselves even more from the pavement, abandoning the ground beneath us. The bird's-eye-view of the city morphed it into a plethora of toy buildings.

We watched the plane icon on the overhead TV inching closer and closer to the body of land known as British Columbia, and we sat in absolute quiet as the rows around us murmured indistinctly.

Bellona broke off a piece of a Kit Kat bar and crunched on it. Even her chewing sounds filled me with anxiety. Every sound that was emitted from us struck fear in me that Caroline would hear us. The worst of all was when someone passed by us to go to the washroom. Every passing body had the potential to be Caroline. Luis showed me how Caroline had a washroom closer to her and that she'd be walking in the opposite direction, but not even Luis' reassurances could calm me.

Instead, I kept watching the row beside us for clues that they had something to do with our purpose. Mrs. Director's words kept replaying in my head: "You'll know. Time will show you." That meant waiting, but I wasn't the waiting type.

I looked around with heightened attention from the stress. A family of three sat in the middle row beside us; the husband, a Seth Rogen look-alike, was absent-mindedly chewing on roasted peanuts while his wife slept beside him. Their daughter sat between them colouring. I wondered if they had anything to do with what was to come.

Further down the row, a couple sat together. They were both pointing at things outside the window with a level of exuberance that suggested they were in their first three months of dating. They also didn't look like they would be part of what was to come ambiguously. I grew frustrated with my surveying.

Time passed and passed, and my restlessness settled into a worry, my heart calmed, and my palms weren't as sweaty. 10:30am.

They began serving breakfast. The stewards rolled their carts along the aisles, first starting with a selection of beverages and then the meals.

"What's happening," I whispered to Luis.

He looked over, sensing my frustration. "Everything is okay," he said. But I could tell he was covering up a lie.

"Something should have happened by now, shouldn't it have? What are we waiting for? What is she doing?"

Luis turned his head to discreetly look behind at Caroline. "I can't see much. It looks like she's still in her seat."

"Do you think I have to go over there and talk to her?"

"Mrs. Director said we'd know, didn't she?"

"It feels like we have to do something."

Luis shook his head. "No, I think we'll know. That's how it played out in the past. We should just wait it out."

"If you're sure..."

"Bellona," Luis said, undoubtedly trying to distract me. "How's your lasagna?"

"Great, we should wait," she said in one breath.

"Why?" I said, surprised that she was weighing in so decisively.

"Mrs. Director knows what she's talking about," Bellona said.

As if on cue, the whole cabin shook unexpectedly with turbulence. Unified and startled cries escaped from the passengers.

The turbulence didn't feel like the kind of turbulence we had been experiencing; it had a staccato pattern. It also lasted longer than the other bouts of turbulence preceding it.

We gripped the arm handles on our seats as the plane dove up and down as though it were a dodgeball in the air. It didn't ease up for minutes. Tension filled the cabin. The couple sitting in front of us began praying quietly in a different language.

"Look out the window," Luis pointed outside. The whole right wing of the plane was moving wildly up and down.

A scream came from the front end of the plane. Luis shot out of his seat at the same time as Bellona. People around us got up to form a scattered crowd, looking for the attendants who were usually stationed behind the grey curtains at the end of the cabins. None were in sight.

Terrified faces surveyed the plane from every direction and people of all ages and races had the same expression of panic plastered on their faces. The calm of the cabin was destroyed only to be replaced with chaos. Heads kept turning as people tried to gain more knowledge about the situation, seeking a source of guidance. I looked at Caroline's row. She wasn't in her seat among the panicking passengers.

"Caroline isn't here."

"How long hasn't she been in her seat for?" Luis turned to look around.

"I don't know."

"Shit."

"We need a plan."

"We need to find out what's happening."

"No," Bellona said, interrupting our nervous deliberations. "Something is happening to the plane. Who handles the plane?"

"The pilots," Luis and I replied in unison.

"Exactly. They are the Commanders," Bellona said. Bellona's word choice wouldn't strike me as strange until I looked at them retrospectively. It would be later that I would understand.

"She's right," Luis said. "We'll split up."

"I'll go find Caroline and you two go and find out what's happening to the plane," I said.

Luis and Bellona began pushing through the throng of people lined up by the cockpit while I moved in the opposite direction and towards Caroline's seat.