Where No Human Should Be
By Joanna van der Hoeven
Six o'clock, sitting in the bar of the Trans Atlantic terminal for Montreal Pierre Elliot Trudeau airport. We were filling up on real food and enjoying a pint of beer before being subjected to the smells of airplane "food". I am reminded of the saying - if it's white, it's sweet, if it's brown, it's meat, if it's grey - stay away. Just the thought of it, being served at 11 o'clock at night makes my stomach roil.
I looked out the window at the cold January night, watching the trucks and luggage trains going to and fro under the dim orange lights, all ignoring the speed limits and stop signs. The wind was picking up, pushing away the last of the snow we had received. As we had walked from the rental car drop off point to the terminal we could really feel the change in the air, from the moist wet tolerable cold air to the biting, freezing, painful cold air that you only get when temperatures reach -20°C or lower. It actually hurt to breathe, the air strangely enough burning as it entered my nose and then freezing my lungs. All I could think was of getting through those doors, into the warmth of central heating, much as I hated airports.
Now we were getting ready to spend the night in the air, trying to get some sleep as we flew miles high in the air. Nothing could be more unnatural. A half hour before the flight I dosed myself up on Gravol, an over the counter motion sickness drug, hoping that it would both help me sleep and ease that awful feeling of perpetual motion, even after we had landed. We would have at least a two hour car drive home, and we would then fall into bed, the world still moving.
We boarded the plane, and prepared for take off. The air on the plane was stale already. However, we were on time. Thankful for small mercies, I prayed to the spirits of the wind, to the Skyfather, that our journey would be swift and safe, and that the Earthmother would receive us safely on the ground at our destination. As we sped up for take off, so my heart raced, as it always does, as humans reach a speed they should never sanely be travelling at. We lifted, and so did my heart, and we climbed swiftly into the sky. I only hoped that my cold had abated enough that my ears would pop and not cause me too much pain.
"Swift and safe journey" I repeated., "Swift and safe journey". I did not want to spend any longer in the air than I had to. Sick and tired, literally and figuratively of these Trans Atlantic flights, I repeated my mantra, "swift and safe journey". The captain came on the intercom. "Flight time this evening will be five hours, forty-five minutes. We've a strong wind at our backs, about 200km. We will be hitting some turbulence over the Atlantic, however." I turned to my partner, gleefully announcing that we would be arriving in London an hour early. As far as I was concerned, the less time I spent in the air the better.
Trying to watch Stardust and hear the words above the roaring of the engines, suddenly the plane was beginning to shake. No stranger to turbulence, I continued on with the film. The seatbelt sign came on, and we bumped and rumbled along as normal. Suddenly it became more and more violent, with drops that left the stomach somewhere near the overhead baggage compartment. I was glad I had eaten much earlier, and not airplane food. As it continued, I had to stop watching the film, for the bouncing and jostling was making me sick. The pilot came on over the intercom. "Flight attendants to your jump seats". Jump seats. What a term. How reassuring.
It was getting scary now. Gripping my armrest to keep myself in my seat (for I felt the seatbelt would not be doing a good enough job at that point) my heart raced as my stomach churned, my head thick with Gravol and fear in my eyes. I turned to my partner, who appeared non-plussed. No fear. I had been through bad turbulence before, but this was now very scary. I certainly did not have a fear of flying - I had done too much of it. However, I very much experienced the fear of falling.
The pilot came on the intercom again. "We've got 300km winds around us right now, however, other planes are ahead and behind us, and they are getting through. Nothing to worry about, folks." Little did he know that we could also hear the BEEP BEEP BEEP of the alarm coming from the cockpit over the intercom. Just great, I thought. He's reassuring us, which means something bad is definitely going on. I sincerely regretted my earlier prayer for speed, and noted that the spirits of air were not something to be taken for granted. As our contraption of metal was hurled through the air like a child's toy I prayed.
Finally, the winds abated enough that we reassumed our normal steady flight. After twenty minutes of hell we could now relax, inasmuch as that was possible after nearly convincing yourself that you were going to die. There was vomit in the aisle at the front of the plane. The recycled air made you wish for a drop in cabin pressure, so that the oxygen masks would fall down and you could breathe the sweet life giving stuff that you needed. All we wanted to do was land.
We did, and I said a prayer of thanks. Never again would I wish for a swift journey lightly. After our drive back, we lay in bed, listening to the wind howling outside. Unable to sleep for the sound of the wind simply reminded me of the hellish journey we had just experienced, all I wanted to do was crawl into dark silence, where I couldn't hear the roar that reminded me of being miles high in the sky in a metal tube with wings. That dark place above the Atlantic in the middle of the night where wild, untempered spirits roared and played was not a place where humans should be.
