The Significance of In-flight Olives
a confused flash fiction humor
While attempting to slide into a “once-per-week” posting here at Underside, I run the risk of forgetting entirely! So sate thyselves with this tale from the skies, and I’ll keep doing my thing over here in this corner.
The Significance of In-flight Olives
The plane was banking to nose toward New York, and I sat on the high side keeping myself from rolling into the aisle and, most likely, through the stratosphere--and with, I might add, my wife quite asleep to my side, her face smeared against her window, looking rather unlike my bride of yesteryear, with a streak of drool snaking down the glass and one eye planted (quite wide open, somehow) firmly at the sun--when I heard something to make my eyebrows involuntarily twitch.
It came from the guy across the aisle, who, in his immense fatherly wisdom, had claimed the window seat from his ten-year-oldish son, the man's rather prodigious frame occupying the entirety of the view from his kid's perspective. I was staring out his window at the dead space I would soon occupy if my grip slackened, when he pointed at the reflection of my wife in his window, turned to his son and, with a glare at my wife, said, "She's a whore."
Now, I am not a rash man, but if I was not convinced I'd hurtle through space should I let go, I would have decked him, or at least said something very English, like, "I say, my good chap, while I admire the boldness, your knowledge of whore-ship, while undoubtedly firsthand, has been skewed by a decidedly prone perspective."
Scared as I was, I instead replayed the event in my mind, considering alternatives: he'd pointed at me in the window, turned to his son and, with a piteous glance at my wife sleeping slack-jawed, said, "He's a bore."
Not being a man high on self-esteem, this seemed a pleasing possibility. But I thought that, perhaps, I was still awry, so again I replayed the event frame by frame (I might point out that this was a short flight, given I'd slept through the bulk of it, with no movie showings and a really bad salad with two soggy croutons. It was also some years ago, if you're questioning the salad.)
I came up with two potential versions: he pointed toward the earth at the outline of the Delaware Bay, or he pointed at a wisp of cloud just below the wing; then, turning to face his son, he envisioned, with a grimace, my wife in a swimsuit, said, "See, the shore."
Or he noticed how wool-like my beard appeared and said to his son, "Sheepy gore" (I apologize, but that black olive did NOT sit well with me.)
Unconvinced, and the plane having leveled out and no longer threatening my life, I inquired of the man, with a mild stutter and a little of my own good-natured, curious pointing (for now I was somewhere between offended and baffled.) "I couldn't help," I said"--and here I pointed out his window and coughed, for no reason other than a cough seemed the appropriate gesture at that moment--"but notice, *ahem* that you, er, pointed out your window at something I, uh, presume to have been of, um... interest?"
If I was him, I would have undoubtedly wrinkled up my nose in bewilderment, with a stony look in my eyes that would have said, only more politely, "And what is to you and your gory sheep beard?" (I admit I might have been a wee bit self-conscious about my facial hair.)
But I will hand it to the guy, he was mildly polite, no doubt humoring a tired old bore who had just confirmed how intolerably boring he really was. "Oh, I was showing my son Philadelphia," he said, and now pointed somewhere behind him, which happened to be right into the wing. I craned my neck this way and that, but all I could glimpse were turbines and sheets of metal.
"Oh?" I managed with a patented (pending) single eyebrow raise.
But either he was impervious to my cunning body language jabs, completely without a clue, or playing me in turn, because he replied, "Yeah, I was telling him how Philly's known for the Liberty Bell, cheese steaks, and mean fans."
He grinned, as if the last bit was some kind of witty revelation, and I felt satisfied and not at all dumb that I hadn't picked up on "-ly's known for" in the middle of his conversation. After all, it's not my fault he didn't have the courtesy to face me the entire time he spoke, or that the roar of the engines in my ears clogged by uncommon heights drowned out his words (nor that I'm deaf in my left ear.) None of that is my fault.
Still, that didn’t explain his glare at my wife, still sleeping with one eye pressed against the glass and a trickle of saliva meandering down to a tiny pool on the sill. So, as I nodded smugly at his explanation, as if I'd known that's what he'd said all along (and why didn't he say so in the first place?), I glanced back at her, back at him, raised my eyebrow (patently) and said more glibly than I intended, "And what about that?" His face turned red, and I knew I had him. He was mine. I could take him. His boy too, if needed. Little punk, is that a smirk?
"Ah, well," he said, like a sheep but without the baaa. "That's kinda funny, now that you ask." And he emitted a piteous chuckle that sounded rather like a bleat. "I thought I saw-- you're going to think I'm crazy for saying this, but it was just for a second, out of the corner of my eye--I coulda swore I saw a gremlin on the wing." *insert Twilight Zone theme, which he proceeded to do-do-do to death*
I would tell you the rest of the story, but by comparison, it pales. We lost an engine starboard, tilted recklessly, lost one port-side and righted, and shortly thereafter plummeted amidst a sudden thunderstorm. Lightning struck the cockpit, sparks flew, dim emergency lights replaced the fried regular lights, then they too fizzled out, and it was all darkness, screaming, and utter terror.
The plane crashed shortly thereafter, and of course, there were no survivors, but right before that happened, I leaned across my sleeping wife, pulled her head off the glass and let it plop onto her lap (snoring loudly, now, even above the aforementioned din,) and, with a gleeful laugh, pointed out the window at the turbulent, blackened waves, shouting, "The sea wants more!"
None of that last bit happened. It was just the other stuff. I thought I should tell you because you looked concerned, despite the fact I'm right here telling you this story. I mean, come on. This was about the olives, remember?
Please direct all complaints to my secretary. Thank you for understanding during these difficult times.