Thank you for choosing Easy Jet, a short story by das_ginger. Date added: 2010-07-09. Times viewed: 3079.
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- Intro: A routine plane journey is more exciting than it appears
“Emergency exits are located to my left and right, and another two half way down the plane. Please fasten your seatbelts, and prepare for take-off, and thank you for choosing easy jet.”
The plane had three rows of white plastic seats, all with matching red cushions. The floor had red runners stretching down to the metal wall at the front. The air hostess, dressed in red, walked through a narrow door, and closed it behind her. The muffled sounds of the engine drifted up to the passengers, as the plane lumbered across the runway. Looking out of the small windows, tall buildings could be seen, rising up on all sides of the thin strip of dead grass. Thick clouds of grey fog obscured everything beyond the monolithic skyscrapers of London.
A few of the passengers, the older ones mainly, had dozed off already, mouths agape and a few drops of saliva here and there. Children sat deathly still, either from fear of the plane, or their mothers who watched them like hawks. One baby started crying, and could be heard until his mother carried him into the bathroom at the back of the plane.
Time seemed to drag on, minutes feeling like hours, until all at once, the plane broke through the grey canopy of fog and cloud. Now, the window that had yielded such bleakness, offered a sublime view. Clear, azure sky, resting on a meadow of cloud. Wisps of cloud, disturbed by the plane, floated like sheep, bobbing up and down in the open field of white. Wind rustled the surface and the thick fleece of the sheep. All this was swept away as a school of brightly coloured gulls swooped out of the sea of cloud and dived back under, leaving plumes of cloud floating and glittering in the blue. A single bird leaped out of the cloud, and swam alongside the plane, its feathers damp and glossy. It glided; riding eddies of the current, before joining its family in the swirling mystery below the clouds.
In the distance, another plane glided majestically through the sea, driving up glittering waves into the sun, leaving trails of grey in the pure white.
“We’re going to be experiencing some rough weather; passengers are advised to return to their seats.”
The purity of the white and blue was tainted, with black clouds and grey sky. The birds squawked, and departed in a bluster of feathers. The woolly sheep became rabid wolves, snarling and keeping pace with the plane.
The plane shook, luggage was thrown to the floor, and the wind wolves howled desolately. There was a boom of thunder, a flash of lightning, a few screams in the plane. When the lightning faded, the plane was in a bank of swirling black fog, where strange shapes floated past the windows. But the plane didn't stay in that underworld of fog for more than a blink of an eye, and soon it was floating towards the runway, down towards the uniform black and grey. The plane touched down, and the passengers filed, one by one as a light grey drizzle poured down, on dark suits, black umbrellas, of people heading off for another day of work in the concrete jungle.
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