A third of the way from Lanzarote to Tenerife, Vance “Goose” Gusecki glances out the window & notices a propeller not turning.
“Umm,” he grunts. Eyes dart furtively.
Clad in polite, a stewardess serves coffee, & Vance does not want to appear the opposite.
As she finishes, Vance opens his mouth & raises a finger, but the woman returns to the plane’s rear for more sugar. He gives a frustrated sigh/nod & leans into the window to see if there were other “safety” propellers on the wing still turning. There were not.
Once again Vance turns & finds the stewardess. Waves.
“Good afternoon, sir,” she speaks, brilliant-toothed smile glued in place. A name tag says her name is ‘Gail.’ “How can I help you?”
“I don’t mean to be a bother,” Vance says, almost in a whisper, “but the propeller outside stopped turning.”
“Which propeller?” asks Gail, Straightens mutating into concerned mode.
“On the wing,” Vance answers, pointing.
“Our wing?”
“Y-es, of course. Which…?”
“Oh, you must the prankster among us!” Gail chuckles heartily. “You had me going! Good one!”
She shakes her head & moves off. Chuckles again.
“But…” Vance protests.
“Do I hear you right, buddy?” asks the passenger behind him, Hawaiian shirt beaming under his graying scalp. “Did you say the professor outside stopped turning? I don’t see no one out there…”
“No, the propeller,” explains Vance. “Right there, see?” Taps window.
“‘Propeller?’” the man wonders. “This plane has no propellers. They are like so last millennium…”
“Yes we…just look out your window!”
Again he taps the window, staring at the reluctant airscrew, but the part surprises him & bails. The plane hitches noticeably, then flies steadily somehow. Vance’s tapping finger hangs in the air.
“I only see the wing,” the man behind him says, straining. “As I should. Planes run on rocket fuel now, you know, which is how they fly. Get with the program.”
The man’s voice shakes Vance from his petrification.
“This plane most does not fly on rocket fuel,” argues Vance. “It’s too expensive for short flights.”
“Are you saying I’m too stupid to know what a wing is?” his fellow passenger growls.
“Leave him, Jerry,” the woman next to him chides. “He’s had too much to drink.”
“Wha..?” Vance gawks. “I don’t drink.”
“Sure you don’t!” she says, snorting. She sips her Rebujito. Rolls eyes.
“Are you bothering my companion?” Jerry calls.
Vance opens his mouth, but the engines (engine?) begin raising their voices. Freezes again; his face pales.
The captain’s voice belts out over the intercom, droning something about altitude, air temperature, traveling speed, humidity, estimated time of arrival, drag coefficients, the wonderful items for sale in the onboard, duty-free shopping catalogue, the pilots’ names & favorite fútbol
teams, etc., but Vance understands nothing. The engines (engine?) are too loud.
He does pick up something about a fiesta, though.
Gail and the other stewardess emerge from the back of the plane in bright flamenco dresses with carnations in their hair. Before them they wheel a serving cart with churros, roscón de reyes, fried milk, crepes, & cured sausage, which go well with the sweet stuff. Fireworks go off, & Vance almost wets himself.
What’s wrong with these people? he thinks.
Someone trumpets a paper party horn in his ear, & Vance turns to see the woman behind him winking. Which is his cue to remember his own companion, his wife, who has been in the bathroom for a really long time.
Gail shimmies through the aisles with a tequila bottle in one hand & shot glasses in the other. Ties are loosened. Women get frisky. Vance gapes.
Then the plane slams down on a pocket of air. Passengers stumble ’n' fall, & those remaining upright are stricken by the accompanying crack, as if the plane had crash-landed on the ocean. There is a pause in the festivities.
“Whooooooooooo!!” one young man howls.
“Stop!!!” Vance shouts, & once more the partygoers go quiet. “This plane is going down! I just watched the propeller fall off!”
As his eyes scan the passengers from the front of the plane to the back, one of the bathroom doors open, & his wife Faith comes out, giggling with a younger man.
“Shut up, Chas!” she titters playfully, wiping something from the corner of her mouth. She notices the silence. Spotting Vance staring at her, her face waxes blank & she scampers to his side.
“What’s up, hon?” she asks, a note too enthusiastically. Her eyes widen & they drink in his warmly.
“Well, hon,” Vance replies, “I was just telling our fellow passengers here that the plane is going down. I saw the propeller stop & fall off.”
“Man, you’re killing the vibe!” someone curses.
“Cretino!” a Spanish passenger adds.
At the back of the plane sit a handful of Guanches, the original people of the Canary Islands. Most are very tall with handsome features, but all suffer from poverty so abject it is unthinkable they could afford the flights’ tickets.
As Vance & the partygoers stare each other down, some of these downtrodden people use the distraction to dip into nearby pocketbooks. One slips into the back to see if anyone is watching the food supplies. They are starving.
In the midst of the commotion, an older, white-haired gentleman named Bell makes his way back from the front of the plane. He wears a Huge-O Boss suit & an immense hat. Vance can’t stop staring at the gargantuan mitre; the fact that it does not scrape the ceiling at every twitch of the head below is a testament to the man’s dinkiness.
“What seems to be the trouble?” Bell speaks. Frowns. His voice is silvery and deep, like moonlight upon a summertime lake.
“That guy there keeps saying the plane is crashing!” shouts a middle-aged man in a silk robe with a dragon on it. Glares while stirring his cocktail.
“I did,” says Vance after a pause. He bubbles with anger–losing faith does that. “& I’d say it’s time someone does something about it.”
“I detest the pastimes you people in low class engage yourselves in,” says the old man, who reminds Vance of Uncle Sam. “Your theories are so…tedious. So, I dare ask: what makes you so sure this plane is going down?”
“I saw the propeller stop and then fall off,” says Vance calmly, arms crossed.
“Maybe it’s supposed to do that,” the gentleman answers. Raises eyebrows. “Are you an expert in planar science? Do you really understand how they work?”
“Yeah,” says the man who accused him of killing the vibe. He wears an oversized pair of sunglasses & a helmet with holders for cups of beer that feed a straw he can drink from, should the need arise. “Maybe they fall off like the back parts of a rocket ya dimwit!”
Vance stands between two rows of seats & shakes his head before sighing & looking down. When he again raises his head his eyes peer out the window on the opposite side of the plane. Specifically, at the other propeller. It is not moving. The plane has gone eerily silent.
“Look!” he shouts, pointing with an open hand, “That one’s stopped too.”
Everyone turns Silently to look towards the wing of the plane, where the propeller is preparing to fall off. With the wing.
Suddenly a large whooshing sound in the front of the plane is heard, & passengers are forced to grab hold of either seats or each other. Vance watches the captain hold the door of the plane open. He wears a vintage leather bomber’s hat & goggles, & a parachute. The other passengers, in the excitement, laugh like they are on an amusement park ride. After spotting Vance staring at him, the first officer touches the side of his nose, winks, & leaps to his fate.
Vance watches Gail push the door closed behind him, & the large-sunglasses-wearing passenger uses the ensuing pause to shout “PAAAAAAARRRRRTAAAAAYYYY!”
Everyone roars except Vance & the older gentleman from the front, who stares & mouths the words You’re on my list.
“Why don’t you just try to relax?” Faith says soothingly, patting his head twice.
“Relax?” Vance gags. “This plane started going down while my wife busied herself with hanky panky in the bathroom!”
“You’re such a gloomy Gus!” Faith complains. “Maybe I didn’t fu…ool around with Chas. Maybe he just…um…massaged my neck! He has beautiful hands, you know! Yeah! You know how my spinotrapezius acts up. & I’ll bet you’re imagining this whole plane thing too! Maybe the exploding propellers were just a prank?”
“They didn’t explode, they…”
“These planes are built by professional dwarves in a secret mountain way underground so they can never crash.”
Suddenly, the plane nose-dives & Vance, who had been listening with his eyes focussed on his shoes, now leans his head back & ponders the ceiling. “Do you hear that noise?” he asks Faith. Searches her eyes. They both prick their ears to the engines’ scream. “Those are the last sounds we’ll hear before we meet God. The plane is in free fall.”
“Well I guess I needn’t try & perk you up anymore,” Faith utters, rising hastily. Storms to the front of the plane in a huff.
After a dreadful pause in which Vance drowns in the noise of the screaming engines, the older man appears, hatless, & veers directly towards Vance. His hair is unkempt and his fly unzipped, but his clapper remains, thankfully, hidden. Reaching his quarry, he lets loose with a
solid, tennis-trained backhander upside Vance’s head.
“This plane will never crash,” he proclaims. “It has always flown. It will always
remain aloft. Arguments to the contrary are heretical, & shall be quashed as they are uttered.”
His voice rises like the train on the first hill of a roller coaster, drowning out the engine’s din. Partygoers turn their heads. Even the Guanches stop eating hopefully unimportant parts of the plane to observe.
“This man is an infidel! A deceiver!” Bell shouted. Points. “He leads the sheep astray! He endangers our sacred & glorious lifestyle! I hereby excommunicate him from our company! The only fate this man may expect is one found tied to the stake!”
A cheer echoes from the passengers, &, for want of a stake, the mob falls upon Vance & hold him to his seat. Protests. They collect belts & strips of cloth & tie his limbs tightly where he sits. He dons a piqued expression while fellow passengers lay onboard shopping magazines & their paperback Hemingways and Melvilles at his feet.
Once finished, the old man gives a nod, & one in their number strikes a match.
Vance raises his gaze to the heavens.
“Do you have any final thoughts?” bellows Bell.
“You may kill a weak goose,” Vance speaks in dramatic, “but far more powerful birds like eagles, falcons, & Rodan will come after me!”
The smoke from the fire get the passengers coughing, & their eyes did water. Faith dabs her tears with a kerchief. The scream of the engines is deafening.
*Inspired by Jan Hus, Czech theologian, philosopher, and early Church reformer. Vance’s final words are (mostly) his. Hus is Czech for goose.
*Photo by Richard R. Schünemann on Unsplash