Short Story
The Coupland Project: On Air
By Vanessa Long

It�s 10pm and Skye is sitting in the Gate 29 holding area. Skye�s sister sits beside her plugged into her Walkman. Her gaze passes right through their surroundings. Skye looks down at the boarding pass and passport in her hand.

They made it through check in okay; through the dreadful paranoia that all that paper work and sheep herding conjures up in Skye. Past a feeling of unease as they check your luggage, your name, your intentions; move you through all those bag sensors, people sensors, nervousness sensors. And Skye wondering whether they�ll find something on her, something unacceptable, even though she has nothing tangible to hide. She thinks that the customs staff have shifty eyes like mirrors; always looking back for a shiftiness in you. Pause. They are waved through.

Skye stares out the terminal window at the tarmac. At her plane at the gate. She can see the pilots sitting in the illuminated cockpit. They look small and oddly comical. Skye looks at the three middle aged men up there and thinks I hope they�re not drunk. Or tired. I hope they know what they�re doing.

Every time Skye prepares to go on a trip she starts thinking like this. Will we make it? She has an impossible fascination with planes. The outside of planes, the inside of planes. Standing in the sunlight and shading her eyes to look up when she hears that rumble to see planes rise, descend, dip, turn, hold themselves up there against the clouds or the night sky.

One side of it is awe. At the size of the plane, at its possibilities. Another side of it is an acute skepticism. She ponders: we weren�t made with wings, so what makes us so confident that we can fly? Skye read a book once in which a guy was saying that the only thing that keeps planes up in the air is people�s belief that they will stay there. Skye wonders: will my faith be strong enough?

They�re making piped calls filled with static over the ancient airport intercom. Rows 50 - 100 for flight QF12 please make your way to the boarding gate now. Skye nudges her sister and they get up. Skye hands their passes to the girl at the gate. She gives them a wary eyed once over and whizzes their boarding passes through another strange contraption. Their bar codes are read. The indicator on the machine flashes green. They are ushered on.

Skye and her sister walk, twist, turn down a walkway; show their boarding passes again, get led down into seats through cramped, 1970�s style upholstered aisles, ditch their bags and sit. Economy. Skye thinks: at least we�ve got a window. She stares at the cardboard looking walls. The flight attendants pass out drinks and little foil packages of peanuts. Skye considers how cheap they try and make you feel in economy class, despite the $2000+ price tag. Soon after Skye�s sister is asleep.

Skye gazes up at the bulkheads. Thinks about all the wires and cables thinly disguised through those feigned walls. Thinks about that series Black Box that she saw on the ABC. Sees behind her eyelids a flickering slideshow of all the mangled plane crashes from that program. Thinks of how all the parts of a plane stripped back look just like any industrial factory full of hard metal, pressurized wheels, steep steel stairs, hissing parts and warning labels. Skye believes that there is no less danger where she is, but rather the desire to endlessly pat it down, conceal it; the desire to make everyone suspend belief. Skye pictures the plane that she is in as a shell made from a million small missiles waiting to be triggered.

A flight attendant appears from behind a curtain, trundles down the aisle and picks up their childish plastic cups. The doors to the plane close. Skye knows that there is no going back. She stares out at the jet black tarmac and see the scenery begin to lurch as they move away from the terminal. The engines rumble loudly close by, filling Skye�s head with a similar rumble, a static pressurized interference that makes it difficult to hold on to a single thought for too long.

The flight attendant reappears in a lifejacket with an oxygen mask strapped around the back of her head. The prerecorded safety instructions sound out throughout the plane. She demonstrates. It strikes Skye that she would make a great Sale of the Century model with her easy gesticulating fulfillment of a role in which she is not allowed to speak. The attendant completes the demonstration. Skye wonders exactly where the life jackets are in her section. She wonders whether her sister would sleep through a 30000 ft incident. Skye looks across at her bundled up in her blanket. She thinks she could.

The plane picks up speed. Skye looks out at the black tarmac covered with blue lights and careful markings. She thinks: they tell us that the skies as well as the oceans are marked out with set pathways, stop and go signals, just like any road. Skye wonders again: will my faith be strong enough?

The plane is barreling down the tarmac now. As the engines scream they rise into the air. The tarmac bends unsettlingly. Meanwhile the city lights below burn with orange confidence. Tethered. Safe. They cross Botany Bay with their stomachs in their throats. Skye wonders how she got where she is. She questions: Will it have been worth it if we crash? Will I have the chance to answer this question if the time comes?

The plane bounces over air pockets. One. Another. They rise higher. Higher. How high can they go? They sink right. Straighten up. Level out. Go flat out. Skye clasps her hands together tightly; thinks: I hope we make it.

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