I was trying to sleep while the plane was still boarding passengers. I was in the middle of the plane laying across and empty seat next to me. I was aware that I’d have to get up when someone came for the seat but I really didn’t want to. I kept peaking out one eye as people milled past. I could see the top of the movie screen over the seats in front of me. It was the type of large movie screen that everyone on the plane used to watch, or tried to, back when everyone watched the same movie on a flight.
I noticed that all the people milling past me were young girls and recalled that the few occupied seats to my left were also young girls. I tried to go to sleep but some girls stopped at my row and I had to get up. I collected my blankets and moved toward the back of the plane. The back of the plane started to open up and on the right side, at the rear, there was brightly lit corner with no seats at all. I went and stood there watching the plane slowly fill with passengers. The seats all faced the back of the plane and I could see that most of the seats were occupied by girls. Someone yelled out a phrase, like a command or a chant and everyone in the plane chanted back one word, then they raised their arms up over their heads and crossed their forearms. Every person on the plane, regardless of what else they were wearing, had a long sleeve shirt with sleeves that were bright white from the elbow to the wrist. They also had white gloves on. In this way, the entire area in front of me turned white as they crossed their arms over their head and hit their own forearms against one another. When they put their arms back down everything looked normal, as it was before.
If I was uncertain before, there was now no doubt that the entire plane was filled with Girl Scouts, or some organization like that. Myself and the crew were the only people not of this order.
I quickly tried to get my phone out, and camera turned on, in case they did this chanting thing again. I thought this was going to be the most amazing photograph, this bright white sea of synchronized movement. I tried to get the phone lens to be wide enough to capture the whole group. I had to back up more. Behind me was an unused hospitality bar that I maneuvered around further back into the darkness. Now the arch over the bar was in the photo. I tried a longer lens through the arch and stepped back. The girls didn’t do the chant again.
Through the archway in the back corner of the plane it was night and I was floating down a calm river or waterway on a platform. It was dark as if there was no sky but a ceiling somewhere up above that was hidden by the dark. There was a cocktail bar on the platform and earlier I had met with Gerard and Liz, though separately. Liz was nearly flirting with me. Both our arms were on the table and your fingers nearly touched in the middle. Without moving my hand I stroked her fingers with mine very lightly. This was the first time I’d ever touched her in such a way but I was confident that she was signaling me to. I was having strong feelings for her but also aware that I was having these feeling and wondering why, or if they were real. I couldn’t figure out the context of time and place in this moment, or my life’s circumstances. She reacted negatively and got cross with me. I had misread the situation. I left her and went to the front of the platform.
At the front of the platform there was a separate round platform floating just ahead. On that platform was a large round air fryer. It was an air fryer but also like a wok with a lid on it. I lifted the lid. About a third of the space inside was occupied by cooked onion strings. There were a couple people around me, we were all trying to figure out what to do with this. I said that we have to do something with these cooked onion strings so we can get a full new batch of onion strings cooking; otherwise we’d not have enough. Also, I was concerned that we’d arrive at our destination before they had time to cook. As a possible solution, I ate a few of the onion strings then resized I can’t eat them all without getting sick. I didn’t have a plate or anywhere to put them. I decided to move them against the wall of the air fryer and just know that they will get over cooked. Maybe I’ll get lucky and they will be the super crispy ones that everyone likes the most. With that, I filled the air fryer with a healthy amount of frozen onion strings and closed the lid hoping they would be done in time.
I could see the archway ahead in darkness. It was a distant but visible warm glow on the black watery horizon, through which was the airplane. I didn’t know if the platform would get there too soon or not. There was nothing I could do at this point but wait and see.