Turbulence

A sudden jolt shook me out of my deep sleep. It felt as if my very soul were being pulled down by a heavy weight, only to be released up into my brain in a matter of seconds. Through crusty eyes, I squinted at the scene in front of me:

The dim, yellow lights in the plane were flickering and there was a lot of movement. For a whole minute, I was just stationary, trying to make sense of my surroundings. Then, the shrieks of the stewardesses started becoming more and more shrill until there was nothing but sheer panic on the flight to Manchester.

Rubbing my eyes hard, I was finally able to make out one of the women, her arms splayed out against the wall of the plane and her beautiful face contorted in pure, unadulterated fear so that she resembled the tragic counterpart of the laughing mask that is often used to depict the nature of a play. Another one of the women was clinging on to the faded lobby curtains for dear life and before I could even sit up in my seat, the oxygen masks dropped before us, waiting to be worn.

My mother, who was sitting right besides me, started putting on the mask in a hurry while I just stared at her, not quite able to grasp the gravity of the situation. Or perhaps it was because my body had gone in flight mode and I had totally lost touch with reality.

"Sitara?"

I could see her face up close, only it was not one but four all at once. And the world was spinning...

The last thing I felt before I succumbed to the ringing in my ears and the darkness creeping in, were her soft hands desperately trying to put the mask on my face.