Distractions

Photographer Not Cited. Plane, Night, Flight, Sky, Clouds. 2013. Wallpapersis, International Airs. Wallpaper IS. Web.  

I hear the roar of the engines around me, never a moment of silence. There is a baby crying two rows behind me, air pressure paining his ears and making him scream. The child to my left is asking his father why he can’t play on his phone anymore, and I almost shout at him that we are landing and he can’t use mobile devices during landing. I look above me and see the television screen, playing some random movie, enticing me for a few moments. In front of me there are two women debating what they will buy at the Duty Free when they will land.

Sitting on my lap is the worst of all: a report I am supposed to send to my boss. I was supposed to send it in before my vacation, but got an extension so I could finish it over my vacation. It is about a trend in our company’s sales margin, and my deadline was yesterday. It is the fourth I’ve missed. I had put the it off every day of my vacation, telling myself I would do it the next day. Now, it is the day of my flight. I had one thing to do on my vacation, and even that I couldn’t do. Now there is no way I can complete it. Too many distractions. I feel the plane shake as the captain turns on the seatbelt sign due to turbulence. My stomach lurches. I force myself to turn myself back to my laptop as the baby behind me screams, and the child to my left wails to be able to play on his phone, his father’s face red with frustration and embarrassment. The movie playing above my head takes an interesting turn, the lights of the screen drawing my attention. The captain announces that there are fifteen minutes to landing.

“You will never finish,” my report tells me. I agree, but tell myself I’ll give it my best shot.

As I am looking at my computer, I suddenly hear a gunshot. I had only heard one before in my life, in a mugging gone wrong across the street from me, and it was terrifying. My eyes dart up as the plane takes another lurch shaking my seat, and I see someone wearing a black mask fly by me. He is yelling something, but I can’t understand him. It takes me a few moments to realize he was speaking Arabic. The plane takes a sharp turn, and our course is redirected. Panic breaks out around me in the form of jittering silence, and I, surprisingly, am calm, the eye of a storm. All I want to do is finish my report, and, laughably, the terrorists have given me an extension. I notice that all of the distractions around me had silenced, excluding the roar of the plane engine. I return to my laptop and open the spreadsheet. In my peripheral vision I noticed the terrorist walk by again, and when he passed the father of the child pining for his phone rose with a switchblade in his hand. I insert a pie chart to my report while begging silently for one more moment of focus. A crash resounds through the plane, and moments later, the father emerges victorious. I create a Powerpoint Presentation, writing as fast as I can, the letters on my keyboard clicking furiously. I hear another gunshot, and realize there are many terrorists onboard, and fights like the one which emerged next to me are running rampant throughout the plane. I finish another slide. I slowly hear more and more squeals of joy, and realize that the passengers are defeating the terrorists one by one. I finish my report and begin saving my work when I hear a deafening gunshot and my screen goes black as the laptop smashes into me. There is a bullet in my computer, destroying every last word of my report, but the last terrorist is caught at last. The captain comes on the microphone and announces that the plane is now safe, and we should be home in no time. Everyone around me takes a breath of happiness. My heart fills with dread. I look down at my dead laptop screen. I wonder if my boss will give me another extension. I doubt it. The plane fills with noise once again. We land.

I get fired the next day.