Emily

A plane to Kuala Lumpur

I was in the queue waiting to board the plane. I could feel a swell of agitation bubbling up inside of me. My palms were beginning to sweat, my heart beginning to race and there was a slight dizziness to my head. I felt as though I was going to faint. Was it worth it really worth it to go through all of this? Is it really worth me getting on a giant metal death trap full of people heading to a country I knew so little about. With these thoughts swimming around my head my anxiety began to bubble up more. I put both my arms around my body and fell to the ground clinging for dear life to my knees. I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to get on the plane but I had to. The plane ticket was in my hand. I had to peel myself off the floor and board the plane but my fear was all that encompassed me. I hear a voice behind me.

            “Get up” he ordered in an abrupt manner. “I can’t board the plane until you move.”

He looked at me with a flare of anger in his eyes at the inconvenience I had caused him. I wanted to tell him that I wish I could but I found myself unable to move, I felt as though I was glued to the ground.

            “Come on you need to move,” he ordered again in that distinctive gruff tone of his. At my reluctance to move he began to flap his brief case in agitation and shift uneasily from side to side.

As I still remained on the floor he began to move people apart to make way for his large girth to shuffle through I could only presume that this was to find someone to remove me from the calming place I had found amongst the deep grey of the polyester floor. I continued to hug myself, continued to apply pressure to my measly frame in the vain hope of taming the anxiety that was crushing me. With each panted breath and every tighter squeeze I began to feel my body slowly unclench. I blocked out the cloud of noise and began to feel as though I was floating. Floating through the liquid of my imagination at the endless possibilities that the final destination of this trip would lead me too. As I allowed my imagination to wander into a dream like state I felt my anxiety release from my body and float above me as though it was a cloud. A cloud that could be punched through and evaporate into nothingness and as it did I felt something a small glimmer that the shot through me. I felt hope, hope that I could accomplish what I set out a very long time ago to achieve but had mad not managed due to the fear that gripped me. But today with every motion, every movement, every word I strive to vanquish this fear. As the glimmer of hope resided within me I parted my eyelids and returned to the reality of the room and with hope by my side I slowly peeled myself off the floor until I resumed my normal status vertically. I then lifted my head ready to make my first movement into the possibility that could be when I saw the agitated gentleman from before moving at as swift a pace as his girth would allow towards me.

            “Time to move against the fear,” I expressed under my breath with a slow exhale. The man’s overbearing presence came inches away from me. I was completely in his shadow as though he wished to contain the fear within me. But the glimmer was still in me and no amount of darkness would be able to put it out now. As I after five years in the dark was ready to left the light through.

Aboard the plane I began to feel numb again. I managed to keep on walking the war smiling faces of the stewardesses began to reassure me as I clutched my ticked close to my chest and shuffled along the nylon carpet with discomfort. My eyes began to dart around the jungle of economy class. They shoved and pushed fighting to cramp themselves into their seats around me. I kept my eyes on the burgundy curtain as the chaos continued to loom, I narrowed my eyes, held my body straight and focused my weight into the ground as I moved towards the safety of the curtain and the lagoon that laid beyond. I had booked myself a ticket in business class over fear of the possibilities of economy class.