The plane was starting to descend. I think we were all supposed to be locked in our seats, prepared for landing, but Daniel stood up and made his way back to us. When a steward came rushing over, Daniel did something with his hand, and the man turned about and retreated.
“She is ill?” Daniel asked.
“I think her body is resisting the change. I have no experience with this. I don’t know what to do,” Timothy whispered hoarsely.
I had never heard my husband’s voice so ragged. I opened my eyes to look at him, then, as the seat in front of me started whirling, I clamped down on sight. “Are we about to crash?” I asked.
Yes, that was the no-no, the never say, the never even whisper phrase that we were forbidden to say on board airplanes, but I was rather out of it at that point. My world was a galloping tea cup, whirling about in some kind of Disneyland Alice in Wonderland fantasy. At least I wished that was where I was at, but the reality was that I was cognizant enough to know that I was still onboard a plane and that things weren’t right with ME, only ME.
All of the other passengers sounded fine. No coffee throwing up due to bad hot water. No pastry breakfast bars that had gone bad. No blueberry yogurt rebelling against a lack of refrigeration time. The rest of the passengers were supremely quiet. No mobs in the aisles, no screaming or crying out from panic. It was just me having major spasms and dizzy spells. It was just me who was treating a plastic-coated discard sack like my best friend.
Daniel reached over and placed his hand on my brow. He mumbled a series of sounds: words maybe, a song, a lecture about dogs, for all I know. Whatever he was saying, it came out as a chant, the mystical kind that needed a rock circle with a campfire in the middle, eight naked-chested Native American braves smoking peace pipes, and a wild wolf howling up at the moon.
I tried to open my eyes to see if I’d somehow been magically transferred off the flight onto a mountain peak in the middle of a forest, but I couldn’t seem to unglue my eyes.
I could feel that Timothy had shifted me into his lap. (How could he do so with his safety belt on? Where was the irked stewardess, raging about protocols and necessity?) Daniel still had his hand on my brow, cooling it down somehow. And Timothy was suddenly licking at my neck. What was up with that?