Appointment in Samarra

I am scared of flying

“I don’t have a preference,”

I remarked to the delightfully dressed man at the front desk.

“Well…the business ticket is just slightly more expensive for the 6 PM flight. I could book you in for that one…that is if you’re not too particular?”, he answered curtly, turning his computer towards me.

His was a calculated reply. There was a rehearsed method to his pauses. Each breath of silence was a moment of mental (mal)function.

Was he to earn more if I said yes to the business class ticket?, I wondered. After all, despite the shapely contours of his navy suit and the excess of gel moulding his hair, he was but a salesman. And like all salesmen, he too must stand to benefit from selling the bigger, shinier, more expensive product – which in our case was a business class flight to Iraq. I didn’t mind. Everyone’s selling something. You’re lucky if you think you aren’t.

He stared at me expectedly, but despite the pressure, an answer failed to materialize. I truly did not have a preference. Economy class, business class, first class. They were all the same to me. I had some friends who would dream oftravelling in business class and others who could only dream while travelling in business class. Nevertheless, I knew that as long as the skies were turbulent, my tired attempts at sleeping would be interrupted all the same. Which reminded me, in the moment, of an oddly specific preference that I did have.

“I would hate to die in economy.”

“Sorry, sir?”

“My preference. My only preference, is that I wouldn’t want to die in an economy class seat.”

He looked up at me, confused. Unfulfilled by the jagged abruptness of my answer. He tilted his head to scan the impatient line of passengers behind me. Now was not the time to digress.

“I can get you the business class ticket then. We only have a few left anyway,” he answered without a bother.

“That means it’ll crash?”, I asked.

“What will?”

“The plane.”

A sigh.

“Our planes are extremely safe, sir. Ten years without a crash, four without an emergency landing. And on top of that, all seats – business and economy, are equipped with life vests. Eight emergency exits across the whole plane. Our pilots and cabin crew have hundreds of flights behind them…You’re in safe hands, sir.”

“What about before that?”

“Before what, sir?”

“The last crash. Before this decade. The last decade. Who survived?”

“I don’t follow, sir, I’m sorry?.”

“Were they business or economy?”

“Who, sir?”

“The survivors.”

“I’m not too sure, sir. Is that relevant?”

“Absolutely it is. I would hate to die in economy.”

He seemed confused. I didn’t blame him. It certainly was a strange request. One, I probably wouldn’t have made had he not asked for my preference. In all honesty, until that moment I hadn’t even acknowledged it as a fully formed preference. It was rather a fleeting thought that I had had when boarding airplanes. Also, when they took off. And maybe when they landed. And sometimes in those uncertain moments when the seatbelt sign came on mid-air. I would turn around to look at my fellow passengers, cramped up against them in my economy class seat, wondering if the middle-aged man with a cartload of adolescent girls on his Instagram looked like someone that was to die that day? I could never tell. No one could.

“Sir? Sir? SIR?”

“Yes?”

“Are you there?

“Yea. Sorry. What was the question?”

“Are you trying to get a free upgrade, sir? Because I honestly cannot do anything. You just don’t have the miles for it and my bos-”

“What? No. What? No. I’m willing to pay for it. I just need to know what I’m signing up for.”

“I see.”

“Do you?”

“Not really.”

I didn’t expect him to. There was little to understand. I’d lived my entire life in economy class, cramped up next to the passengers beside me, perpetually afraid of the recline angle demanded by the person in front of me. My legs strained and confused in a tangle that stopped all blood flow. I’d grown accustomed to the assortment of middling movies that surrounded me and my economy class throat had learnt to choke up when asking for an extra water bottle. My words were cheap and easy to come by. My clothes were often picked right off the mannequin. I worked a job that no one cared for and paid bills that no one would ever see. I had outgrown my economical hobbies and now lived a spectacularly passionless life. I was as economical as they came. So quite naturally, in death I aspired for all that I’d never had. Champagne, caviar, and room to untangle my legs. If I were to die, I wanted to do so with a hot towel hugging my face, as I sipped unaffordable alcohol from a glass I had every intention of stealing. If I were to die, it was to be in splendor.

“I’m sorry sir but you’re holding up the line.”

He gestured at the queue building up behind me.

“I’m going to need an answer, or I’ll have to request you to exit and then rejoin the line.”

I wasn’t sure how long I’d spent contemplating the tickets. It felt like multiple lifetimes had passed. I’d thought about my death thrice in those lifetimes. Once, as the plane combusted upon take off, devouring all within. This was a spontaneous death. No time for my life to flash in front of my eyes. One moment I was swiping through the airline’s collection of new movies and the next I was a flicker in a ball of fire. A wave consumed me forever, leaving me a charred and confused mess.

The second was an inevitable demise. The turbulence renders the plane hopeless. A tin can caught in a tornado. Emergency sirens blare around me and oxygen masks fall to the floor. I am overtaken by the screams, choral cries of help to no one in particular. None of them for me. In this plane I am 45B. No one screams for 45B. The terrified faces of the cabin crew tell me that this is it. The final moments. I wonder if they trained for this? For death. I turn to see the man next to me praying to his God. Asking for forgiveness for his infidelity, I assume. I think to do the same. My life flashes in front of my eyes. An economical movie. I don’t know when the tears came. I don’t know when they stopped. If they ever did. I saw myself dying and then I saw nothing.

The third was a comical one. The plane landed effortlessly. There was raucous applause as the wheels kissed the tarmac. People began unbuckling their belts in a race to unload the overhead storage compartments. I thought to do the same. Monkey see, monkey do. Monkey splatter all over you. The pilot overshoots the runway. Monkey feels a pit in his stomach and then a bang that leads to darkness.

“I’m sorry. I’ll take the business class ticket please.”

“Alright sir. I’m going to need your passport.”

I reached into my fanny pack and handed him my passport, which he half-snatched out of my hand. He proceeded to type away at the computer, occasionally glancing at the queue but never at me.

“I’m sorry for the delay.”

I said, hoping to offset any frustration caused by my indecisiveness.

He smiled a fraudulent smile.

“Here’s your passport and your boarding pass, sir. You can head to security through Gate E. I hope you have a nice flight.”

“Thank you…Yamit.”

I replied, reading his nametag that read YAMIT RAJ.

“You’re welcome, sir.”

There it was again. The smile.

“I can help who’s next.”