After the Storm

“Were you scared?” My brother asked me.

I shook my head. “Were you?”

He nodded. “I thought that was it. I accepted it.”

I don’t know if you can laugh with sympathy, but I’ll say that was my intention. Some people were still shaking from the ordeal, but we were alive and unharmed.

Waking up to stormy winds violently shaking a relatively small Boeing 737–800 is always a good time. I’d highly recommend it. That, plus a girl a good few years younger than me taking deep breaths to calm herself down made for an interesting setting to be thrown into. Heavy turbulence was one thing, the sound of the plane’s mechanics struggling against the wind was another. At the time, I didn’t know what the sound was. I was in the middle seat- paninid between my mum and a stranger. All I had to make of the situation was my seat shaking; my mother praying in the aisle seat; the girl to my right holding the seat in front of her, breathing deep; and the mechanical whirring sound that vibrated through the plane from the outside. Paying attention to the whirrs, a sensible mind understood that it was the wings’ flaps trying to lift. My god-given imagination told me it could also be the plane’s wheels struggling to release for whatever reason. Because wind could definitely do that.

The plane intercom crackled. I imagined the pilot preparing to tell us that we would have to prepare for a crash landing, explaining that we would have to brace ourselves as if it would decrease our chances of being atomically restructured by the force of the ground slamming into the plane. He said something less daunting though:

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we are going to have to divert the plane to Cologne airport. There’s a storm over the UK which is causing the winds we’re feeling now.” He sounded disappointed. “I’m very sorry for the inconvenience but the turbulence is too much over London for us to land the plane here.”

I closed my eyes again but the sounds didn’t change: plane struggling, mother praying, girl keeping her breathing under control.

“Do you fly often?” I asked the girl.

She turned to me and managed a smile. “Yeah, I’m alright with flying, just not so good with turbulence.” British accent.

“That’s fair enough, I don’t blame you.”

“How about you?” She asked. “You seem pretty relaxed.”

“I’ve flown a few times so I feel like I can tell when the plane is in trouble. This is pretty normal, just bad turbulence.” The girl nodded. If I was honest, I thought we were going to crash when we got to Cologne. I didn’t believe turbulence was the only issue with the plane. In my mind, the wheels had failed to open out properly in preparation for landing and the pilot had redirected us to Cologne to either buy more time for the problem to sort itself out or to delay the inevitable fireball, crashing in a less populated area.

“So what were you doing in Memmingen?” I continued.

The girl told me about how her holiday in Germany ended up as an extended stay, spending time in different parts of the country and ending up in the south of Germany. As conversation continued on to the topic of university, the plane shuddered a bit more. I found my legs were shaking. I didn’t feel I was afraid of death, but my body had a clear outlook on the situation that disagreed with the one in my mind. I sighed quietly.

“…and I’m studying law and literature there. They said I could take something extra with my law degree. How about you? Where do you go?” The girl finished.

“Oh I studied law too. I graduated a couple years ago. I’m working now… at a law firm in central London.”

“Oh, how long have you been working there?”

“Almost two years now.” I said.

“You must like what you do.”

“I do.” I told her. “But I wanted to be a photographer more than I wanted to go into Law.”

“Why didn’t you go into photography or something? Law’s very different…”

My mother was sitting on the other side of me, so I knew she could hear.

“My mother threatened to disown me and throw me out of the house if I did Art instead of Law at GCSE.” That was another lie, but it wasn’t so far from the truth. I was ‘strongly guided’ into Law, and I was definitely prohibited from doing Art GCSE. The girl could tell I was speaking lightheartedly and laughed a little.

After a while, the pilot went on the intercom again. “Cabin crew, brace for landing.” He said. I thought it was code. Brace? Why not Prepare for landing? My legs were shaking still. We were definitely going to crash. The plane lowered as it neared the German runway. The whirring picked up again. ‘The pilot’s trying the wheels again’ I thought. A quick end probably. Would’ve been nice if I’d shared the photos that I’d taken and edited. Maybe someone would be able to salvage the memory card in my camera and the hard drive of my laptop. They’d then share what I’d achieved in my short time on Earth. What’s wrong with me? Should I have been praying? That could’ve been the end of my wonderful life. The plane tires hit the tarmac and we slowed from a fired bullet to a leisurely walk.

An applause erupted throughout the cabin and the girl let out a relieved sigh with a hint of humorous disgust.

“This is so un-British.” She said.

I agreed. Even my brother commented about it later. But who could blame the passengers for being happy they didn’t die?

Getting off a plane in a destination that you didn’t intend to go after a seemingly near-death experience was surreal. I remember watching films and shows with supernatural themes and hearing that “ghosts don’t remember how they died” or that “ghosts don’t always understand that they’re dead”. We were marshalled and led through to a location where the airline would apparently help to sort us out.

Walking through the relatively empty midnight airport, passing through “border control“, I wondered if this was it. Maybe we were dead and just didn’t know it. Border control was our humanly minds processing the pearly gates, and the long empty passageways was the bridge to the afterlife. The airline arranged a hotel for its 150 odd survivors and I decided we were alive after a couple hours waiting in line to be checked in. I imagine the afterlife is boring, but not that boring.

An hour’s sleep and half a breakfast later, it was back to the airport. I spent the rest of the day there with a collection of hopeful passengers getting more and more restless. They were eager to get back on a plane. When the new flight finally came, we found out we had the same seating plan as the original trip. A complete retrial of the initial flight.

“I think it’s the same plane too.” The girl said after we finished our “hello again”s.

“How do you know? Have you seen some scratches you recognise?”

“Actually, yes!”

The flight to London that late afternoon was fine. There’s nothing to say about it. But of course: “I think they’re going to clap again.” The girl said.

The landing was a little rough, but still worthy of another round of claps from the passengers. We were alive, and we were home.

“I didn’t catch your name.” I said to the girl. “I’m Marcus.”

“I’m Bella. Yes, very strange after two flights to not know each others’ names.”

She said goodbye after we’d all passed through customs, and I wished her all the best with her studies. My mum said I should’ve given her my number just to network in case she ever needed law career advice. I should have. Law and Literature. I should keep up with my creative side too. I thought I’d start with my photography, sharing the pictures that I’d sat on after taking and editing them months prior. At the very least, the appreciation of my creativity could reach me before death does.