I had no idea how he could ever be at the same flight with me. Neither did I understand how he could so coincidentally sit right next to me.
Yet he was there; flashing a smile, while putting on the seat belt on his waist.
"So, are you ready to fly?" he said, closing his eyes, leaning his dark head against the chair.
"Yes, I think so," murmured I, wondering how he seemed to know it was the very first time I would ever fly.
I asked him nothing about that, though, and shifted back my stare through the window on my left. I saw part of the plane's left wing, of the runway, and of the Terminal 2 building of the Soekarno-Hatta airport.
I heard his breath; regular and calm, resembling somehow the man he seemed to be.
He was a tall, young white gentleman of early 30s, if not late 20s. That time he was dressed in semi-formal suit of light yellow shirt and light brown pants. He spoke American-English, so perhaps he was from the US, or had spent big part of his life time there.
He had spent a few months in the newsroom of the publishing firm I worked at, though I hardly knew anything about his doings awhilst. Other foreigners at the newsroom, if not the copy editors, then the interns. But, this man seemed to be neither. He looked more like an observer, and all I knew was that he dealt a lot with the editor-in-chief or the managing editors. Perhaps he was indeed an observer, perhaps he was doing some kind of media research. I didn't know, and had never been too bothered to find that out. There was surely some curiosity, especially with some of the female staff excitedly talking about him pretty frequently (he had a notably agreeable look, indeed). Yet again, he had been too distant to be an object of my interest.
I hardly ever talked to him while at the newsroom. I saw him very rarely, with our very different work hours (I only arrived at the newsroom in the afternoon, the same time he was preparing to leave) and with the opposite positions of our cubicles; mine on one end and his on the other.
But we did pass each other a few times, from which he seemingly knew me. He smiled at me once or twice, but never said anything in addition to that.
For a foreigner, I think he was quite friendly; obviously even more friendly than me, an Indonesian who was supposed to be typically warm and smile a lot. I was instead mostly aloof and reserve, and such trait showed its worst form in front of strangers I had nothing to do with, someone like him.
"So, you've got something to cover?" asked he in a sudden.
"O, ya; a conference. I have to cover a conference," answered I, rather startled actually.
"What conference?"
"On HIV/AIDS."
"O, great. That must be great. So you cover health issues?"
"Yes, sometimes."
"You specialize on health?"
"No, uhm...not really. I cover a lot of other things, too; education, science, technology, sometimes politics and law enforcement. I don't specialize."
"O, ok. Cool. Good for you," said he, flashing another smile, before opening the pages of newspaper on his hands.
I wondered, indeed, how I could act so stupidly; neither did I smile back nor ask him the same question he gave me, just at least for the sake of civility. That would make him think I was rude, or was annoyed with him, whereas I was not. I wanted to know, indeed, why he did the travel. Was he returning to his homeland and having his term in Indonesia end? Or was it there was something he had to do and that he would fly back to the archipelago as soon as he settle the business? I was somehow quite sure the answer was the former; and that must have been the reason I did not feel so obliged to deliver the questions.
Anyway, he was already absorbed in his reading now that I did not dare to interrupt. He still did so when the plane took off.
I enjoyed the tremble and shakes of the plane as it left the land and ascended toward the sky. I had my eyes fixed on every single thing still visible through the narrow window, til I could not look at anything but the blue sky and groups of white clouds.
What a moment. It was my very first flight. I had never had a chance, and a reason, actually, to travel with an airplane previously.
Afterward the plane flew flatly, indeed resembling a bus running on flat road. Worse, it made not even the slightest shake for some time, making me feel I weren't flying but instead only sitting idly on a sofa at home.
I tried to follow what the man did; finding something to read. He was now reading a long article about the credit crisis. I left my own newspaper untouched, thinking it would be difficult to read it in such narrow space left. So I opened the airplane's magazine, saw all the pictures of tourist destinations, and read a few interesting articles accompanying them.
I actually brought my own book, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which I had read twice. But, suddenly I felt so sleepy, and thought it must have been very dull reading such small, narrow letters in the flight.
Then, in the next minute, I fell asleep. A fairly good sleep, in fact, in which I later on remembered I must have dreamed about something, though the dream was too vague to enable me to tell anyone about.
I do not remember how long I slept, what I remember is that when I woke up, everybody looked terribly panic. The passengers shouted, calling the stewards and stewardesses to come and do something about the messy, while the latter walked abruptly back and forth along the aisles. They wore their safety jackets. It was very noisy, indeed. Everybody moved anxiously.
"Don't panic. You must stay calm in this sort of situation. Your safety jacket is under your chair, take it and wear it now," said the man; half-whispering, while doing the same thing he told me.
I saw worry on his face. But, even if he was frightened, he must be very good in controlling the fear, if not in hiding it. His dark blue eyes followed the panic stewards and stewardesses, but he alone sat still, quiet.
Now I felt him paying attention on me. But I made no move. I stared straightly onto the chair before me, and tried to feel each movement of the plane.
It trembled severely, and was descending fast I could feel. So I closed my eyes, mentioned His names some couples of times, and surprisingly felt no panic nor fear.
I tried to talk to Him, to say to Him that if that was indeed the end of my life, I hope He would forgive all my wrongdoings and let me die in peace. And I asked Him to take care of my family, my parents; should I really have to leave the world before them. And I asked Him to bring us together again in paradise, after we all die. I gave up my fate to Him already.
Those were all things engrossing me while the airplane fell freely from the sky.
*
"Hey, wake up! Wake up, we're saved!"
Those were the first words I heard as soon as I regained my consciousness.
It was his. The young man's.
He helped me sit, and then, slowly, stand. Now I saw that we were in the middle of about two hundreds stranded passengers; some still helplessly lay on the ground, some sat confused, some stood and helped others awake.
No one died. No one hurt. I saw no blood nor injury anywhere around. People only looked tired, messed and confused. But, the strangest thing of all was that I, too, could not see any single part of the plane nor its wreckage.
It was only us, a bunch of puzzled people in the middle of nowhere. It was likely we were in the middle of a wide green meadow. There were trees here and there, and rows of hills; in fact we were seemingly on top of one of, but the rest was grass, only fresh green grass strecthed as far as the eyes could see.
"Where are we?" asked I.
"I think we're somewhere in the highland," answered he.
He saw confusion in my eyes, and quickly added,
"In Scotland. We must be in Scotland."
"But, what happened? Where's the plane? I thought it crashed and we've all died. Are we dead?"
He said nothing; looked like trying to figure out the answer himself. Then he shook his head, saying,
"I don't know. I don't know what's happening. But, I don't think we're dead. Don't worry, ok? We'll find some help," he closed the words with another smile, as if trying to ensure me that everything would be indeed okay.
From a stranger, right at that time, he turned into a person I strangely felt very familiar with. Suddenly I just knew who he was. I said nothing, though, only drew myself closer to him.
For about an hour or two, we, all the passengers, tried to do everything we could to survive from the eerie situation. Some of us tried to make phone calls, only to find that our cellphones were either broken or produced no signals. Others wandered around the hills, but sooner came back after finding only other rows of green hills in every direction.
I and he tried both. After failing to make phone calls, we climbed one or two hills and descended another, before deciding to get back to the spot we fell onto.
He said he wanted to wander farther, across a few more hills, but insisted would only do that after escorting me back to the group.
It was when we were descending the last hill to get to the group that we heard an old man's yelling,
"O, youuuuuhuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu............!!!!!!!!"
We, me and him and all other passengers, spontaneously turned our heads to see the source of the sound, and saw a red-head peculiar old man in Scottish attire, complete with tartan kilt, shawl and hat. He held a cane, and behind him were about two dozens of sheep. He must have been a shepherd.
(to be continued...)
* This is a short story based on a dream I had on one night of March, 2007.
