Everyone about to board this large commercial plane with an excellent safety record appears to be very calm. In disaster movies, very calm people are extremely mistaken; the lone voice of concern or agitated drifter is wrongly dismissed as a kook. Because I live my life as if I were being filmed for a secret audience that is always judging me, I know that I would most resemble Robert Redford in Three Days of the Condor; this means I must be right to panic, but there is nothing I can do about it.
This plane is too small, and will be batted out of the sky by an errant wind, or will tip over and drop like a stone if I don’t lean into all of the turns and make sure my weight is as evenly distributed as possible throughout my row.
I can’t see what’s happening, I’m too far away from any of the windows to see the ground, which means there’s absolutely no proof we aren’t currently flying upside-down into a witch’s mountain.
This plane is too large. It defies God. It is a flying Babel, an affront to gravity, a lumbering menace.
The flight attendants are not visibly terrified by turbulence, which means they are special counter-agents intended to lure me into a false sense of security before the obvious simulacrum of my life collapses.
I can see what’s happening, we’ve turned at a slightly different direction into the sun, which means that the cabin is now full of sunlight, which means the sun is paying attention to us, which can’t mean anything good.
This plane is turning slightly, which means we are about to lose all forward momentum and fall down.
The pilots have made an announcement about seatbelts. They sound calm and like they are at work.
Everyone else on the plane is talking quietly or watching TV or trying to sleep; in disaster movies they always show the poor rubes about to experience mortal peril (mortal peril!!!) doing stupid, rube-like stuff like relaxing instead of being on high alert for gravity to suddenly reverse, or something.
The plane is “beginning our approach for an on-time arrival.”
I have, in the past year, somehow acquired said irrational fear of flying and it is simply the worst. This speaks to me.
so glad to get this just before boarding a nine hour flight lol