Aeroplane - Carol

‘It’s fine,’ she keeps telling herself. ‘Just like getting on a bus.’

And then, ‘Why on earth am I doing this? Why am I so extreme?’

Laura had tried to conquer her fear of flying many times before. Hypnosis hadn’t worked and she had abandoned the trip to Paris with her mother at the check-in desk. But she felt like this time was different. The day spent at the airport with the psychotherapist, cabin crew and pilot had been brilliant.

‘Aeroplanes just want to fly,’ the pilot had said, ‘it’s like poetry in the air.’

Laura had felt confident during the short afternoon flight they had taken. She had even taken her turn up at the cockpit.

Later, back home, she had thought ‘it’s now or never’, spinning the globe with her eyes closed. Her shaking finger landed on Malaysia with a lot more confidence than she felt now.  She looked at the small, functional plane door. Sterile and unfriendly. Unconcerned for her plight it seemed to shrink further.

The kids at school would have laughed to see her now. ‘Looks like miss is going to burst into tears.’

A pushy older woman behind Laura sighed loudly. ‘Could you hurry along please?’

Laura stepped into the shrinking tunnel of the plane. She shuffled down the aisle to her seat. The overhead lockers leered with their gaping mouths. She stopped to wipe her eyes.

‘Well are you going to sit down then?’ The bossy woman asked.

Laura shook as she sat down, her long legs cramped and uncomfortable in the tiny space. She folded them up like a daddy-long-legs. She stuffed her coat under her seat as the bossy woman plonked down next to her tutting.

Panicky thoughts were temporarily interrupted, as Laura thought, ‘she stinks, she can’t sit there.’

The woman was ‘large’ and sweaty. Out of the corner of her eye Laura could see stretch marks on her dimpled arms. ‘Her fat is invading my space, ‘ she thought unkindly, her claustrophobia bringing the worst out in her.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ The sweaty woman demanded eyeing the disintegrating tissue in Laura’s hand.

This flight was going to be unbearable. Two big women in a too small space. Bon voyage indeed.