great ball of fire (part 2)

When Nap Lapkin falls asleep on a plane he dreams about plane-centric things. When he falls asleep on a train or inside a submarine he dreams about sex obviously. They both look like penises. One could argue that a plane looks like a penis with wings sticking out of it and bring up the fact that many psychiatrists associate flying with sex but as I am the one writing this who are you going to believe?

And yes, I know many of you will still believe the psychiatrists just to be difficult but as I can’t control who reads my stories I suppose I have to let it go.

Nap had the following dream; he was flying on a new plane. A new plane with extremely large aisles. It was in some alternate reality where a five hundred pound woman had sued the airlines because she wanted to be a flight attendant but she was too fat and kept getting stuck in the aisles. In this alternate reality there was nobody to sit her fat ass down and explain that she was too fat for that particular occupation and instead some agency with a title like American With Disabilities And Such forced all the airlines to buy all new planes with wider aisles to accommodate this woman. Of course, the woman never got to live out her dream of pushing a beverage cart down the aisle and hitting a passenger’s knee (Nap’s knee throbbed slightly as his subconscious realized what was going on between his ears and it caused him to stir slightly and mutter “fat bitch” before sinking back into the REM state) because she died of a heart attack while all the planes were being built. She was just too fat to live.

But her brave struggle to achieve her dream of pushing a beverage cart down the aisle and hitting a passenger’s knee (knee. stir. “fat bitch”) did have consequences. In Third World countries around the world they were able to buy the old planes at a great discount and thereby the number of aircraft fatalities plummeted. These ‘old’ planes they were buying weren’t really old compared to the ones that they were flying up until then. Their old planes were really old. Every third plane would burst into flames on the runway or disappear over whatever body of water they were flying over. Now they were able to afford nice planes because these Third World countries didn’t give a flying crap (get it? flying?) what a fat woman wanted to do as a career.

On the downside, the cost of flying in developed counties skyrocketed (that sky was unintended). Overnight it quadrupled and the airlines charged for every little thing they could. A passenger would hear the following safety announcement as the plane was ready to depart;  “In the event of a decompression, an oxygen mask will automatically appear in front of you. To start the flow of oxygen, insert your credit card and swipe it downwards then pull the mask towards you. Place it firmly over your nose and mouth, secure the elastic band behind your head, and breathe normally. Although the bag does not inflate, oxygen is flowing to the mask. If you are travelling with a child or someone who requires assistance, secure your own mask first, and then swipe your card for each individual you would like to have oxygen supplied to. You will receive a discount of $3 off every person after your third swipe. Keep your mask on until a uniformed crew member advises you to remove it. Oxygen will continue to flow at a rate of $9 per half hour.”

It wasn’t long due to the cash-crunch that every flight included a decompression. Heaven forbid they were forced into a water landing, the cost of the slide was exorbitant to say nothing of the floatation devices.

At some point during the dream he imagined a rocky flight filled with decompressions and water landings and was jolted awake. He realized that the plane he was flying on was hitting some turbulence and the two were probably connected somehow, although it wouldn’t explain the cynicism of the dream, and he closed his eyes once more and drifted off.

He knew that even if the plane crashed he would somehow stumble out of the wreckage. Even if it crashed inside an active volcano he would stagger out of the ash coughing and no worse for wear.

He was a super spy for fuck’s sake.