Take A Business Trip
I’m fixing to take a business trip.
After I concluded the deal on the cantaloupes with the grower from South Georgia, I headed for the airport. I realized that Ms. Tally Vinegate from the Office of Circumlocution was most likely to be even more irritated with me for ignoring her request for a meeting in my office, but I had an auction to attend in Dallas. Even though my plan to disappear and begin a new life was firmly implanted in my head, I was still at a loss on how to even begin such a task.
So until I came up with something my intentions were to conduct business as usual, knowing that the Office of Circumlocution was in business for the prevention of business, and that the more they did the less that would be accomplished.
Recently, my operations manager at VegX, in one of his daily reports had advised me that the company was in a position to add three more vans to our fleet due to the talented and dedicated efforts of my sales and marketing team. Consequently I had discovered an auction of slightly used vans by a rental car company in the Big D, and I was headed that way.
I arrived on Thursday evening and made the winning bids on the vans on Friday morning, and after making arrangements to have them delivered to VegX in Atlanta, I headed back to the airport.
When I got on the plane I noticed there were a lot of empty seats in the rear, so I walked all the way to the back and took a seat on the last row, settled into 42-G next to the window, placed my coat on the empty seat next to me, jammed my briefcase underneath it and opened my copy of USA Today.
We had only been airborne for about 30 minutes before the drone of the plane’s engines lulled me to sleep. I woke up some time later, looked out the window and saw the Mississippi River below, wide and brown, 36,000 feet below me; then I went back to sleep.
The blast woke me up. It was the loudest sound I had ever heard, almost to the point of being unbearable. The shock waves of it reverberated through my body, the seats and the floor. I knew immediately that I wasn’t dreaming because the entire plane had begun to violently shudder. The fear within me elevated to the point of terror.
Looking forward, I saw that many overhead compartments had been jarred open causing luggage, briefcases and bags to rain down on the panicked passengers. Several people who hadn’t had their seat belts on were being flung around like rag dolls.
It appeared that the flight attendants had almost completed serving refreshments when the blast happened. Now, they too were grabbing for anything they could to hold on to; consequently, the serving cart up the aisle on my side was unattended when the plane suddenly nosed upward with a thrust.
The cart began to roll down the aisle, gaining speed all the way until it smashed into the rear of the plane just past my seat with such force that it bounced back and a sheet of broken glass, whiskey, wine, ice and water exploded over me. I closed my eyes until it was over.
When I opened my eyes the plane began to level off and seemed to stabilize except for an unnatural buzzing sound caused by extreme vibration. I looked over the back of the seats in front of me and saw the passengers toward the front beginning to recover. The flight attendants were directing everyone to buckle up, while they, themselves took empty seats and did the same.
Everything became so quiet until it seemed eerie for the situation. It was as if I was watching a movie unfold in front of me. I could see the other passengers were beginning to look around and whisper to each other. The flight attendants were beginning to get out of their seats when the intercom system began to crackle and the captain’s voice came on: “Ladies and gentlemen, the turbulence we just encountered wasn’t due to the weather.”
The entire plane became extremely quiet. The captain continued, “It seems that we have lost our number two engine, the one in the rear, however, we can fly quite well with the remaining engines, number one and number three.”
A buzz of relief rippled through the aircraft until the captain’s next announcement cut it short. When he said what he did I knew I was fixing to start praying.