#34

An hour into a four hour flight, the man next to me started to watch a movie that took place in a submarine. I did not pay much attention because I don’t particularly care for those types of movies. But every now and then, I glanced over. Every scene looked the same. A half dozen soldiers crowded around a radar screen in a cramped metal tube. A shot of the submarine from the outside made it look just like a plane with no wings.

Why, I wondered, would anyone want to watch this while also being in a cramped metal tube? Was he aware, or was it pure coincidence? Was he living out some kind of fantasy in his mind? Or replaying a past memory? Was he the captain?

I drifted into a light sleep as the flight carried on, and as we traveled southward in our sky submarine, the sun set and the world outside grew as dark as the deepest depths of the ocean.

Bright flashes from the screen of the man next to me woke me into confusion. It took a moment but I realized the submarine had been hit by an enemy missile. The crowded command room was awash in flames, and the men were all lying burnt and bloody as water poured in from an unseeable hole in the submarine’s shell. One crew member rose from the rubble and started calling out the names of his mates. He lifted a squirming body from the floor and tied a life jacket around its waist. The man sitting next to me was biting his nails. I turned back to the window, determined not to watch the end of the film. There was no way he was the captain. And there was no way we would save each other. He was a coward, I was a traitor, and we would both perish in a cold metal tube.