Leaving On A Jet Plane

My palms started to shake before we even left the boarding station.
I had never flown long distances before, not since I was very small and my father took me along to one of his conferences in LA. He used to work for a company called COBOL Industries, and he was required to go away a lot. When my mother had my younger sister, he finally quit his job and they moved to where I grew up. But that conference was the first and last time I had flown through different timezones. I had been only 5, so the only thing I remembered was the color of the seats: dark blue with red diamonds all over them. Since then, I had only flown down to Florida or up to Maine to visit my relatives.
Now the plane I was on was flying to Colorado, with the people selected for the MOSS Project in tow. There were exactly one hundred of us, fifty male, fifty female. Most of us were in our early twenties to mid-thirties, but there were a few who were older. A Japanese man clutching a bag to his chest and an elegant dark-skinned woman with gold bangles around her wrists were two of the oldest. I liked the diversity that the project embodied. So far, I had seen people hailing from everywhere from the US to Korea, Germany to Afghanistan. It was an exciting mix of exotic and familiar.
But I wasn't focused on the blended culture around me. I was gripping the seats with white knuckles, convinced that if I didn't hold on to something, I would fall out of my seat and the plane would go careening toward the ground.
"Gum?" A voice next to me offered. I turned my head slowly to see my neighbor, a tall woman with blonde hair, holing up a stick of gum in a shiny silver wrapper.
"Thanks," I choked out, grabbing the gun and hastily unwrapping it.
"It's not that bad once we get in the air," she said reassuringly. I noticed her accent was slightly French, but mixed in with something else I couldn't identify. "I've flown on planes dozens of times, and they're very safe."
"Yeah," I said, smiling weakly as I chewed the gum.
"I'm Diane Rousseau," she said, extending a manicured hand. "I'm from Montreal, Canada."
"Kay Collier," I said, using my new moniker. I shook her hand quickly, returning my clammy one to the armrest. "I'm from Philadelphia. Well, at least I used to be."
"It's a pleasure to meet you," Diane said, smiling warmly. "Is this your first flight?"
"Since I was little," I explained.
"Ah," she said with a knowing nod. "You'll be fine, really. Takeoff is always...interesting, but once everything calms down it's just like riding on a train or in a car. Amazing views, too."
"I'll take your word for it," I gulped as the plane started to pull out of the airport and glide toward the runway.

*          *          *          *          *

Diane was right, as much as I hate to admit it. Flying was fine, in fact, it was rather fun. My stomach had done nervous flips as we took off and ascended to the height we'd have to maintain to make to to Colorado, but beyond that, it was enjoyable. I looked out of the window and down at the streets and cars and buildings. They looked like tiny bugs down there, the cars especially. With the sun reflecting off their tops, they looked like brightly colored beetles.
I chatted more with Diane as the ride went on. I found out that she played the piano professionally, that she had a husband and a little boy at home, and that she had once played at Carnegie Hall to benefit a charity for leukemia. Her sister Marie had died of leukemia six years ago, I learned, and she had been an accomplished violin player. I told Diane little about my life, only that I lived in Philadelphia and I had a little sister, like Diane, but I didn't elaborate.
A ding sounded, and the light that read KEEP SEATBELTS ON clicked off. A flight attendant's voice came on over the speakers. "The pilot has turned off the seatbelt sign. Please feel free to move about the cabin in an orderly fashion."
As soon as she spoke, a big, athletic man across the aisle got up, his hand pressed to his mouth, and stumbled towards the bathroom as fast as he could. I watched him go with a mixture of amusement and pity. The woman he had been sitting next to rolled her eyes.
"Typical," she said. "It's always the unlikely ones." She had curly dark hair and blue eyes, and an English accent. "How long 'till they let us out of this death trap, anyway?"
"About four and a half hours," Diane said. "What's your name, anyway?"
"Katharina," the woman said with a smile.