Last Resort

This was his very first flight. For so long he had looked up at those enigmatic flying sardine cans and felt fear. It was simply fear of the unknown; he didn’t understand how such massive, heavy tubes of metal were capable of soaring through the atmosphere. How did people trust them? They were clearly death traps.

Yet for all he was afraid of them, part of him longed to float along through the clouds. Not to mention the thought of travelling made him feel almost giddy with excitement. Sure he had been all over Canada, the United States and even Mexico, but he had ever gone overseas.
Since his childhood, Russia in particular had fascinated him. It seemed so mystical and opulent; so foreign and unique. The only obstacle in his path was that getting there without flying would take a considerable amount of time and money.
So after years of dreaming and of saving up, he had finally decided that fear would no longer rule his life. He had planned a two week vacation to be spent divided between St. Petersburg and Moscow and then he had bought himself a ticket.

Now, at long last here he was strapped into his seat on an airplane that was winging its way over the Atlantic. In an attempt to conquer his fears completely he had even sprung for the window seat. At the time that had seemed like a brilliant idea; however now that he was on the plane staring out at an endless, restless expanse of water thousands of kilometers beneath him, he was having some second thoughts. Perhaps this was yet another wonderful theory that did not actually work in practice.

Deep breaths, just keep taking those nice and deep breaths. Ok, maybe that and also stop looking out the window. There, he felt better already. The in-flight movie was some stupid teenage love story, so that wouldn’t help to distract him much, but thankfully he had brought along a book that he had been meaning to read for months now. So he would just focus on the plot and not look out the tiny, almost porthole-like pane of glass that was the only thing between him and a whole lot of air. Deep breaths.

For the next hour he forced himself to focus on his novel. It was pretty good and it was written in an amusing and sardonic style that he always enjoyed. Finishing off another chapter, he decided that he could manage another glance out at the sky. It really was a beautiful way to travel. You get on the plane in one country and several hours later you arrived in another country, on another continent. Of course, several hours in a hollow steel cylinder sailing through space was fairly daunting when climbing a step ladder took an unusual amount of confidence. Yet for all that, he was doing it.

Getting to see Russia after all these years would definitely be worth it though. He just had to keep focused on seeing those sugar-spun domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral. He would walk across Red Square and tour through the Kremlin. Russia was waiting just for him and in a few more hours he would be there. No obstacle stood in his way.

“Attention passengers, this is your captain speaking. Due to an unusually large amount of snowfall in the last couple of hours, we have just been informed that this flight has been rerouted and that we will be landing at our closest alternate airport. We at Air Canada Airlines apologize for any inconvenience and further information will be made available through your flight attendants. Thank you for your patience and understanding.”

Head falling forward, he hit his call button. He was bringing in his reserves; nothing less than copious amounts of alcohol was going to get him through this.