Martin took off his seatbelt after some turbulence had subsided, and, becoming quite relaxed, kicked off his shoes and put his feet up on the headrest of the seat ahead of him. He began looking around trying to come to terms with how there was not a single soul in the passenger cabin other than him. He kind of liked the peace. He took out his pocket Bible and placed it on the arm rest after flipping through it, and got up, taking off his sunglasses and resting them on top of his glistening head. He stretched, yawning. He was almost in a fluster not knowing what he should do next, and then it dawned on him. To the rum! he said silently in his head, and he went to investigate at the back end of the cabin.
He saw the bathrooms on his way to the small kitchen room. There were two of them, as clean as a repentant sinner. The toilet was sparkling, and the sink was free of scum. Martin, having not had the privilege of using a clean bathroom in months, was rather astonished at this prospect. He’d have to take a leak in one of them later. Perhaps after finishing a bottle of rum?
The kitchen galley was incredibly cramped. There was a microwave, a fridge, and a few cupboards. Martin investigated the fridge first. There was no visible sign of any rum anywhere in cold storage. Martin shoved a few things aside. Chicken and fish dinners, sodas, a bottle of vodka, a bottle of whiskey. He found no rum. Nothing. He began to worry a bit, and a drop of sweat beaded on his brow as if it had suddenly gotten hot, and he closed the fridge. No worries. He’ll check the cupboards; after all, the fridge was pretty full. Maybe a stewardess had put it somewhere else because his request was so late notice.
He searched the cupboards, and nothing. He found a few drinking glasses embroidered with the airline’s logo, plastic cutlery, kiddie straws and cheap napkins, but nothing that even vaguely resembled sweet, sweet rum. How hard was it to get a quart of rum nowadays on an airline? It wasn’t like he specifically requested that Cuban stuff (although he was actually really fond of it). Martin had enough, slamming one of the cupboard doors after retrieving one of the drinking glasses. He went back to the fridge, bringing out the vodka and a can of cola. He mixed two parts liquor and one part soda, and made sure to put everything back where he found it.
Mission accomplished. Somewhat, he finished the thought. Martin took his makeshift drink back to his seat and put it in the cup holder. He picked up his Bible and flipped through it again, although more slowly this time. He wanted to try and find a passage best fit to his description, but his disappointment was too great to allow him any specific thought other than contempt for the lazy stewardess who messed up his only request. He put God’s book back down and sighed, taking a drink of his stiff concoction. He should have brought the communion wine along with him. At least it had more of a dignified taste.
But this will do, he thought, after taking a drink and relishing its strength. He smacked his lips and became suddenly tired. He felt the alcohol running through his blood already, his face blushing because of the severity of his mixture. It had been a long time since he had drank the Russian drink; he hadn’t had vodka since the chilly mornings of his trip to Siberia with… Mary. Jesus Christ, it all comes back to Mary eventually, doesn’t it? Forgive me Lord, he thought and took another drink, this time just a sip. He looked around at his surroundings once more, looking past the window near his seat and reveling in the sight of pure, white fluffy clouds.
Then there was a sharp thud, and Martin awoke from his slumber. He looked at his drink in the cup holder: empty. He must’ve dozed off watching the heavens, he figured. He looked around for his Bible, eventually realizing that it was back in his pocket. There was another thud. Turbulence began to shake the plane wildly.
“What in blazes is going on?” Martin thought out loud, getting up from his seat. He remembered his suitcase in the overhead compartment, but decided it would be safer for him to leave it there. Something was suspicious. He lurched forward to the pilot’s cabin, and that’s when Martin realized he was kind of drunk. His head was spinning so much he could have sworn the turbulence was a figment of his intoxication. But he knew it was real, especially when a violent shake threw him against a chair on the opposite end of the aisle.
“Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch!” Martin massaged his head, which had just struck one of the overhead compartments, in a feeble attempt to wash away the throbbing pain. It was certainly a different kind of drunk he wasn’t used to. And he certainly didn’t think about a worst case scenario such as this. If he was lucky, he’d be dead before he reached the cockpit.
He trudged on, enduring another violent fit of turbulence. He slid the door to the cockpit open, and walked in. “Whoa. Whoa man. Oh no. Oh no,” he plainly said as he waltzed in. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He took off his sunglasses, hoping it was merely an illusion, putting them back on and off repeatedly. “No no no no no.” He finally took them off, placing them on top of his glistening head, and rubbed his eyes in disbelief. There was no one in the pilot’s seat, controlling the plane.
Martin closed the door behind him. “No no no no no no no no no no no!” He nervously stammered as he sat down in the pilot’s seat; a reactionary movement. He then clearly recognized what he was doing. “What am I doing?” He repeated his thoughts aloud. He looked at the dials and levels and control sticks, and realized he didn’t know any of it, not one bit.
“What am I doing?” He yelled again, and took one of the flight sticks in his hand. He jerked the stick towards him, and the plane pulled back sharply. Martin could feel the force of gravity pulling on his skin. He heard a distinct rumbling and rolling in the passenger cabin, but paid no mind. He had a plane to fly, damn it!
Almost suddenly, perhaps slowly because Martin couldn’t understand the fluidity of time in his current state, the clouds changed from harmless and fluffy and fun to dark and menacing and demonic. Lightning flashed and rain began to speck against the windshield. Martin, almost beginning to panic, breathed deeply, tightened his grip on the control stick, and summoned his rock hard confidence once more. It finally dawned on him that it probably wasn’t vodka he was drinking. He jolted the control stick to the right, avoiding a hypothetical lightning strike. The rain did nothing to hamper his view, and the claps of thunder did nothing to dent his newfound confidence.
Then, all of a sudden, the door behind him slid open. “What in the fucking hell are you doing, laddy?” said a Scottish accent. Martin looked back to see a portly man who was managing to squeeze through the cockpit’s entrance. Martin stared at him blankly, still holding onto the plane’s controls, watching him struggle to fit through. “What, what are you doing?” The fat man repeatedly asked. He finally pushed through and grab Martin by the shoulders and threw him off with three hundred pounds of force. “I can’t go for a fucking leak for two minutes without having some drunk fly the plane? Are you out of your fucking mind, laddy?” He sat down in his rightful seat.
Martin sat in the co-pilot’s chair to the right. “I’m perfectly in my mind.” Martin managed to say. He couldn’t feel his lips. He couldn’t feel his hands. Something was definitely wrong. “I don’t think I was drinking vodka.” He said, obviously enchanted by the obvious drugs he had consumed earlier.
The fat Scottish pilot leveled the plane, looking over to Martin constantly in astonishment, trying to divide his attention between the priest and the heavens. “That was you?” He pointed a sausaged finger. “That was you who drank my special stash?”
“Special stash?” Martin asked. “There was a special stash?” He winced his brows.
“I put my… uh, medicine in there.” The fat man suddenly got nervous. “But never mind, we’re almost to Australia.”
“You mean Austria.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said.”
Martin’s heart skipped and he lost his unusual usual confidence. There were no vampires in Australia. As it turned out, the pilot was as every bit incompetent as Martin was when he was drunk and drugged. “Are we going to be alright?” Martin asked, his word slurring a bit.
“Alright? You steered us right into a lightning storm! Is that your idea of alright, laddy?” The fat man asked, yelling at the top of his lungs. “We’ll be very lucky if we turn out—“
And then there was a loud crack, and the lights in the cockpit went out, and the thrum of engines whined down. And then there was only the sound of raindrops until a moment later when another clap of thunder resounded through the cabin. Martin could feel the plane dip down, the force of gravity pulling him upwards. He pulled a cigar from his pocket and lit up, creating a soft glow in which he could see the fat man’s worried face. Martin’s confidence always returned in the face of certain death. “I guess we better hang on to something then, right?”
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