Tonight Your Name is Lauren

You are a professional plane crash survivor. From 20,000 feet coasting to the ground, the water, a mountain slope. You have survived every type of plane crash imaginable. Now, you can be anyone, look however you want, be in any occupation, have any plane ticket. 40 miles up you coast over the Pacific Ocean and cry.#####*Alright, how we doing back there?* I ask the five passengers, and they all nod. The most difficult part of being a flight attendant is the training. I had to train for months before I finally became a passenger, and now I get to go on all the flights for free.<br><br>I could have picked any airline, first class, economy, anywhere really, but I picked this one. It was a private aircraft flying coast to coast. An executive flight, a private service for the richest of the rich. Mostly the pilots just drove it to a city three hundred miles away and back.<br><br>But sometimes, there’s one like this. It was a celebration for their first grandchild. The husband, the wife, and their children, and three friends. One of them was a politician, and it was his birthday. The other was a lawyer of some sort, and the last two were doctors. <br><br>Lucky for me the flight only had nine people on board. What this meant was that I didn’t have to spend days establishing a rapport with the other passengers, I could just look like a flight attendant and try to save as many as I could. <br><br>I thought about this for a long time. I think it’s insane that so many plane crashes have a flight attendant walking out alive. I think they have an extra seat somewhere in plane crashes, a seat with a parachute and a smile. I had to be careful here though, I had to be both the flight attendant and the passenger. And I was going to have to pull off the perfect act. <br><br>I thought about this for days, and I knew I needed to establish a bond with the passengers. I needed to be in the trenches with them, dirty my hands, and be a passenger. And the grandchild was the perfect opportunity.<br><br>“What’s your grandchild's name?” I asked the elderly couple.<br><br>“Oh, we sure do love our grandchild.” The grandmother said. “His name is Jacob. He is so handsome, look here,” she said, showing me a picture.<br><br>“Oh he certainly is. I love the name Jacob.” I said as the plane started to rumble.<br><br>“What is that?” the wife asked.<br><br>“Oh, do not worry. Do not worry. We are just going through a patch of turbulence. It will be nice and smooth soon,” I said as the first warning alarm went off. <br><br>“Don’t worry plane travel is safe,” I said as the oxygen masks came down.<br><br>“How long will it be until we land?” the father asked as the fire alarm turned on.<br><br>“Not long, we are almost there,” I said, actually worried about plane travel for the first time in years for the first time in years. <br><br>And then the plane shook. For a moment I thought it was the turbulence, but this felt different. I looked over to the father and he was gone. I looked out the plane window. There he was, falling in the air, screaming through the plane’s windows.<br><br>All the passengers screamed. I pulled down the emergency oxygen mask. “Calm down, everyone. Stay quiet. Everything will be alright,” I said as the politician screamed, “This is not alright. This is not alright.”<br><br>I thought about smacking him for a moment, but I needed to keep a calm demeanor. I tried to open the door, but the pressure was too great for me to open it. I needed to calm the plane down, but the fear of the passengers made the windows shake.<br><br>“Look, I understand you’re scared. But I worked as an air stewardess for five years. I have been on a lot of flights. I know plane travel is safe. I can tell you have all been on a lot of flights. I know we will get out of this alive,” and then I started to cry.<br><br>*God damn it.* I thought to myself. *And I blew it.* <br><br>But the grandmother came over to me and hugged me. “It’s okay, sweetie,” she said. “I know you are scared. We all are. But you have to be brave for us. You have to help us get out of this.”<br><br>“Okay,” I said as the engines started to fail. We were going to crash.<br><br>I thought about grabbing the parachute, but I could not bring myself to do it. Who would I save? Certainly not the politician. The father was already gone. The son was already dead inside. What I had to do was make sure the plane went down smoothly and that I could get the parachute. But first I had to control the plane.<br><br>I pushed my way through debris to get to the cockpit. The pilot was dead. I got in his seat and put my hands on the steering. When I did I felt a strange sensation in my fingers. The plane and I were connected. I need to describe it in words. It felt like the feeling of relief when you are sick, and then you feel better.<br><br>But the plane and I, we were connected. I could feel the pain in its metal limbs. I could feel the stench of the smoke in the aisles. I could feel the windows shaking in fear.<br><br>“Calm down,” I said. “I feel your pain. I can see the terror in all of the windows. But you have to open up to me. I am the only one who can save you.”<br><br>The shaking subsided, and I could see the ground below. We were not as high up as I thought, and I was confident that the landing would be smooth. I needed to make sure the five passengers that were left were safe. <br><br>I pushed through the debris again to get to the cabin. The passengers all looked scared, and the grandmother looked the most scared of them all.<br><br>“Don’t worry everyone. We are going to be okay,” I said as I looked for a seatbelt to click them into. The mother gripped the grandmother’s hand. “We have to get out of here. My grandchild is waiting for us.”<br><br>“Did you say we were going to be okay?” the son asked.<br><br>“Yes, I did,” I said as I struggled to find a seatbelt for the grandmother. There was none. “I have been a flight attendant for years. I know we are going to land safely.”<br><br>“Where’s the pilot?” the politician asked.<br><br>“He’s dead,” I said as I struggled to fasten the seatbelt on the grandmother. If I could only click it in place. I struggled so hard, but it would not click. And then, I heard the beep. The plane’s landing alarm.<br><br>We were going to crash.<br><br>And fast.<br><br>I had to do something, and I had to do it fast. I looked around, and I felt the fear of the windows, and the stench of the smoke. But I could not see anything. And then I remembered I was connected to the plane.<br><br>“Please, I am begging you. Open up to me. Show me a way out. I can not lose anyone else. I will not lose another life.”<br><br>And then, I saw it. I saw a picture of a buckle and a seatbelt. I looked at the grandmother and the politician. They both had their seatbelts buckled, but theirs were not the ones I needed. And then I saw it, under a bunch of debris. A buckle.<br><br>“Help me,” I said, and the son got up and helped me. We both lifted up the debris, and there it was. If I could only connect it to something. And then I saw it. The grandmother’s seatbelt. We were just in time. The plane’s alarm turned into a warning of the plane’s landing.<br><br>“Everybody get ready. Everybody hold on,” I said to the passengers, and they all held on.<br><br>“Thank you,” I said to the plane. “Thank you for opening up to me.” And I heard a gentle hiss. The plane was calming down. I thought the landing would be fine. And then I saw it, the ground rushing through the plane’s windows.<br><br>All I could hear was screaming. The passengers, the plane, we were all screaming. What was once a hiss was now a screech. The landing was not going to be fine. And then, I felt the pain of the plane. I felt the entire left side of the plane rip apart. <br><br>I had never felt pain like that before. I felt it in my fingers, my head, my spine. I heard the screech of the plane again. We were going to crash.<br><br>I had to do something. I had to do it fast. I thought for a moment, and I remembered the feeling of relief when you are sick, and then you feel better. I remembered how connected I was with the plane. What if I could transfer my body’s healing abilities to the plane?<br><br>I put my hands on the dashboard of the plane, and I closed my eyes. I felt the entire left side of the plane rip apart. I remembered the hiss of the plane when it calmed down, and I transferred the hiss from my head to the plane.<br><br>I felt the screech of the plane stop. The plane started to heal. I could feel the tears mending themselves. I could feel its left side coming back together. And I heard the hiss again, this time louder than before.<br><br>The plane and I were connected again. But this time I was the one feeling its pain. The plane was still screeching, and I could feel its metal tearing apart. I could feel its windows shattering. And I could feel its entire left side ripping