Strange Short Stories

This last week had been chaos, work almost doubling to cover the week long ‘short’ break I was intending to take, away from  these  shores  to  a foreign  spot  I was sort of familiar with.

I was about to take a well deserved break in a place called Albufeira on the West coast of Portugal. A holiday spot for tourist families at the height of the Summer holidays, when children were away from school, but now fairly quiet in October which would suit me well. I had stayed in a flat the last time I had been here on business, located above a small restaurant called "Carpe Diem"; a name whose meaning suited me well.

Work had been hectic especially as we had been preparing the documentation for a new project about to be tendered when along came two smaller jobs that required urgent attention. Something that got almost the same priority as the major tender but only because they involved heating systems that had failed on start-up as the heating season approached. I had had to get my mind into three places at the same time, not an unusual event, but a right pain when a holiday approached. It made it only too clear why it was that I was taking a break.

Here I was in the airport at last, through the security checks and sat in the departure lounge awaiting the call to board, which would come in about an hours time. I had bought myself a book to read at the newsagents but I was going to leave that until I arrived at my destination, burying myself for the present in a copy of the local rag (a newspaper for you, the reader).

The weather outside was not too great as a day filled with drizzle was all too evident from the streams of water running down the expanse of glass looking out onto the plane parking apron. Having worked my way rather quickly through what passed for news, I buried my thoughts on solving the crossword and Suduko.

Boarding had been relatively easy, although a couple of the usual types of ‘must get on the plane first’ had been a small inconvenience to the rest of us. For some reason these people always failed to understand that everyone had a seat allocated, so why rush and push their way through?

I was to be seated towards the rear of the aircraft in row 25 and by sheer luck at a window seat; I always felt more comfortable watching the world pass by while we were flying. Working my way down the aisle and placing my bag in the overhead locker, leaving my book on ancient history within, I wasn’t going to start reading on this short journey of only some two to three hours. I took my seat and relaxed.

I was soon joined by a lady with her son to sit alongside of me; the young man of perhaps fourteen or so took the aisle seat while cross the aisle from him was what I took to be his father, her husband. How a young man could be away from school for what I assumed would be a holiday (perhaps I shouldn’t assume) I couldn’t guess; still, nothing to do with me, just switch off and relax.

We taxied out to the runway, the engines hit full power and we sunk back in our seats as the aircraft charged down the runway to finally leave the ground behind tilting upwards to climb into those clouds that had been delivering all the drizzle. This and the landing sequence were in all probability the only two exciting events in flying with what came in between just some sort of routine; not boring but still just routine.

I unfastened my seat belt, put my shelf down and opened my newspaper to get back at the Sudoko (the hard option in the rag) that I was having problem with. With the office left far behind I found myself starting to be genuinely relaxed and smiled inwardly at the realisation.

“Would you like a snack box Sir,” broke my self imposed concentration; I had to think fast. “Chicken sandwich, Ploughman’s or a hot Ham & Cheese,” she continued to ask. A Stewardess was stood in the aisle with her trolley and was enquiring if I wished to partake of the available delights.

“Yes please,” I replied trying not to sound confused. “Chicken would be fine”, I replied as a default, “and could I also have a coffee please?”

“Of course Sir,” she responded handing over the box that no doubt she had guessed might be my selection, or had it been just to hand on the trolley; the latter I was sure.

“Excuse me,” she directed to the lady and her son as the coffee was passed to me; complete with a little portion of milk in its plastic tub and some sugar.

“That will be £8:40, please,” she asked as I dug out my wallet from my back pocket, trying hard not to knock against the shelf on which my coffee sat precariously.

“A coffee and a ‘sarnie’ at such a price,” I thought to myself. “Everything seems to be getting more expensive every time I fly. Ah well, just eat and drink,” which is what I got on with.

The coffee was quite acceptable and the chicken not at all bad, quite acceptable in fact.

I stuffed the empty card box, some cellophane, the empty milk tub and the empty sugar sachets into the waxed paper coffee cup I had just drained and sat back to relax; about another hour or so and we would be there. Forget the Sudoko, just sit back and relax for the hour was all that was on my mind.

I’m sure that I started to doze off, head back into the seat, without a care (my break was starting properly when I felt like this) glancing out of the window and as free as the clouds we were passing by.

Then something else, other than the clouds, went flying by. Something I didn’t recognise, not at first, but then it struck me. I had just witnessed a ‘classic’ UFO, a large flying saucer, shooting past us in the same direction as we were travelling.

I looked towards my fellow passengers sat next to me and to anyone else in the plane but not a murmur; had anyone witnessed what I had? It seemed not and as I was saying to myself, not a murmur, not from anyone.

Perhaps I was seeing things but surely someone sat on the same side of the aircraft as myself must have been looking out of a window and had seen it. I tried hard to be certain of what I had seen. I checked my memory you could say. I had not been dreaming even though I was close to complete relaxation. It was not small, I guessed although some distance below the level of the aircraft, and it was travelling faster than ourselves; it was overtaking the plane at some pace. It was the ‘classic’ shape of a UFO, if there was such a thing. A circular shape, shiny and I was sure that I had noticed windows of some sorts, or were they just black markings.

The more I brought my thoughts together the more I confirmed to myself that what I saw was indeed very real. I had a seen an Unidentified Flying Object, and for the very first time. I was shocked, amazed, enthralled, uncertain, slightly frightened I had to admit, but shockingly otherwise non-plussed. Was it because no-one else gave any indication that they had also seen it, perhaps?

The small-talk chatter of the passengers continued unabated.

I checked my thoughts again and yes I confirmed to myself what it was that had sped past this aircraft, a UFO surely, not another aircraft. I had once witnessed an Israeli fighter jet come very close to a flight I was on heading for a resort in Egypt so I considered that I had some sort of reference point. I only confirmed to myself once again that I had witnessed a UFO from close quarters.

What could I do here and now, tell my fellow passengers, call for the Stewardess and ask her to tell the Pilot? And what good would that do? Perhaps the authorities would have men in white coats waiting for me when we landed, or worse, men in uniform with a set of handcuffs. This dreaming had to stop; I was losing the plot, if there had ever been any.

“Calm down,” was the only sensible phrase that crossed my mind. With the same degree of control I had had to exercise in my professional role at work, I took a slow calm breath, held it momentarily and then slowly released it as I sank back fully into my seat. I had to relax, switch off, doze off even and when I awoke I could make all the notes I needed, possibly on the transit coach from the airport to my holiday town.

I succeeded in almost dozing off, resting my head back in my seat, closing my eyes, if only now for another hour perhaps. I felt myself drifting off, rather rapidly it seemed but, hey-ho, just go with the sensation. I was tired, yes, and starting my switch off a bit sooner than I might have expected; a quick power-nap wouldn’t go amiss. Perhaps what I had just seen and the turmoil in my thought processes had resulted in me being tired further.

“Ah well,” I thought, “have a break and let the mind turn off. Sort this out later, much later perhaps.” And so I let myself drift off and stop the thoughts going round in loops in my head.

The ‘Fasten Seat Belt’ sign went on with its accompanying ‘ping’.

That woke me up, still a little fuzzy between the ears, but awake. I reached for my seat belt and clipped it into place. I noticed my fellow passengers sat on my right, the two teenagers, had fastened theirs. This journey was about to come to end shortly as we glided down to Faro and I could get off to my holiday break.

“I hope I haven’t made a nuisance of myself,” turning to and asking the two teenagers. “You know, snoring and the like.”

The young lady sat next to me just smiled and replied, “No not at all. We’ve all been asleep for an hour or two on this long flight. Not a problem at all,” she confirmed.

There was something a bit odd about the young lady which caused me to pause for a moment before averting my gaze with a quick apology, “I’m sorry.”

“No problem,” she responded.

Was she used to being looked at? She had to be as her large dark eyes and oddly shaped skull beneath masses of flowing ginger hair must surely garner attention.

I turned to look out of the window and then it hit me straight between the eyes.

As I fell asleep, and what’s more the window through which I witnessed a UFO was on my right and the two fellow passengers, a lady and her young son, were on my left. I had changed the sides of the aircraft – HOW! This didn’t make sense, I was fooling myself surely, but no, I had clear memories of being sat on the right hand side of the aisle and with a window to my right.

I turned once more to the strange young lady on my right with a sense of panic building within me and asked her a question.

“Excuse me, but could you confirm for me which row we are sat in? I’m confusing myself somehow and think that I’m in the wrong seat.”

She looked at me with disbelief in those large black eyes. She went to speak but stopped with her mouth still open and further, turned to her partner on her right. I couldn’t hear what she was saying despite leaning towards her, most impolitely.

Turning back towards me, moving my head back rather smartly, and looking straight at me with a rather curious expression, she stated simply, “Row 15.”

“I should be in Row 25,” I blurted out, “that’s where I had been sitting before I dozed off. This is crazy.” I was agitated and finding it hard to maintain some degree of control.

I pressed the overhead button for the Stewardess. I needed sensible answers and soon to stop my headlong plunge into total confusion and who knows what else.

“Yes Sir, can I help?”

“Where is this flight going to?” I asked.

She looked at me in disbelief. “I beg your pardon Sir.”

“Please, I’m confused and I cannot remember where I’m going. I might need help. Please just for now, help me fill in some of the details. Humour me if need be, but please just help. Where are we flying to? I think it’s Faro in Portugal, is that correct?”

“Faro? I’ve not heard that word before, and it’s in Portugal. Is that a country? I’ve not heard of that either.”

I listened to this madness in disbelief.

“You’re having fun, aren’t you,” I tried, making light of what might be a silly joke.

“No Sir. We are heading for Mardi in Naspo and have about another hour and a half still to go.”

“We were supposed to be landing in Faro probably in about another twenty minutes, considering the short nap I was having,” I tried to explain. “I’m heading for a short break at my favourite apartment above the Carpe Diem restaurant”

My words appeared to fall on deaf ears as the strange young lady next to me, her male partner, not to mention the Stewardess and another strange looking person in front leering over her seat, all looked at me in complete surprise with their mouths open.

“I really do not know what you are saying Sir. Your words do not make any sense to me nor would I guess to these others listening to you.”

“That’s correct,” the strange young lady tried. “It’s been a very long flight and we’re all a little tired. Have you been having a bad dream?” she asked.

“No,” I retorted. “And what do you mean by ‘a very long flight’, it’s only a couple of hours from Manchester.”

“Where,” a couple of voices in unison came back at me.

“Where’s this Manchester?”

“In England, where else would it be?” I queried.

They all looked dumbfounded and stared at me again in some sort of disbelief.

“Look Sir. I guess you’re a bit stressed and very tired after such a lengthy flight. Please stay calm and I will bring you drink to help you relax and we can sort this out as soon as we have landed; are you OK with this.”

“Tell me Sir, what’s your favourite tipple? If you sit back and relax I will go and get you a big one or perhaps two; how about that?”

“Yes, thanks,” I managed to mutter.

The young lady next to me and more concerning, the passenger to my front leering over her seat, had fixed their eyes on me, as some sort of curiosity. This was disconcerting to say the least. Standing in front of a room of clients, their engineers and a few contractors to give an impromptu analysis of a design and the difficulty of the amount of work to be undertaken in the time slot I had given, was for me fairly straightforward but here the feeling was strangely very different.

“Your whiskey Sir,” the Stewardess spoke as she offered the filled glass complete with ice, past the two young people to my right.

“I trust that you’re OK with Killbean,” she stated as more of a question.

“I’ve not heard of this one,” I responded, “but I’m sure it will be all right.”

“It’s the best Sir; a single malt all the way from the shores of Linish. You’ve not heard of it Sir? I am surprised.”

“Could I make a further suggestion Sir,” she asked before I could get the plastic ‘glass’ anywhere near my lips. “Would you care to come with me and take an empty seat at the rear where I could sit next to you and we could have a chat?”

I was to be shunted away from the other passengers with the view that somehow I might be disturbing them. I was to be labelled as a sort of ‘nutter’ that needed to be separated from the others, to be arrested upon landing by men in white coats. Or was I dreaming, overstating what I was not registering properly?

Whatever, moving away from the disturbing stares seemed a good idea. I offered my apologies at inconveniencing the two passengers next to me to let me pass into the aisle. The dark eyes of the strange girl followed my every move as I shuffled into the aisle, carefully carrying a glass of whiskey of a brand I had never heard of before.

I walked in front of the Stewardess towards the rear trying hard not to disturb anyone else, the majority of whom seemed to be asleep and some with blankets over them.

I was ushered into one of the two seats at the rear where the Stewardesses would sit when not working and when landing, etc..

I took a sip of the whiskey and it was nothing like anything I had tasted before that carried the label and name of whiskey; it had some sort of bitter sweet flavour and none of what should be expected of a single ten year old malt; it was awful.

“You don’t like your drink, Sir?” I was asked.

“It’s not one I’m familiar with,” I lied. I had never heard of it and I had partaken of quite a few, too many perhaps.

“Where did you say you boarded the plane?” I was asked another question.

“In Manchester,” I once again replied.

“You’ve got me there,” she continued. “I’ve never hard of it, but there again I’ve not been everywhere.”

Was she trying to gently placate me, keep me calm and chatting until the plane landed? I was sat at the rear of the aircraft where it would be easier to control me, where the white coats could get to me without too much fuss; via the rear doors of course.

“You said something about boarding the plane in a place called Manchester. That’s not somewhere I’ve been to, in fact I’ve never heard the name before. Tell me something about it.”

I didn’t feel well. My insides started churning. my entire body as in some sort of shock and I was trembling. Not heard of Manchester?; is this some sort of joke?

Treating her question as one from someone who genuinely had no idea of what I had said and keeping a calm passive face, I tried to explain.

“Manchester this morning was quite busy and flights were arriving and departing normally despite the unpleasant weather; cold drizzle turning to something more tangible, rain.”

She looked at me as though I had been speaking some sort of unintelligible foreign language.

“And where did you say you were travelling to?” she continued her questioning.

“To Faro in Portugal,” I replied with no further words added.

“If I told you that we left for Mardi in Naspo from Old Borough, crossing the Lantic faster than most passenger aircraft these days, with a flight time of some six hours, would that not sound right?”

“I have never heard names like that,” I uttered with a bit of a tremble in my voice.

She wasn’t joking and this was clearly not some big wind up by the guys in the office. “They couldn’t engineer something like this, surely,” crossed my mind. “No, come on Peter, you’re becoming a basket case, take it easy, calm down, calm down.”

For some reason I thought I might mention the UFO I had seen when I was sat in the other side of the aisle in row 25. Perhaps it might provide a common point of discussion between us although no one else had expressed any surprise and surely someone had seen it besides me.

“Did you see the UFO come flying past us at some speed?” I tried.

“We see them all the time,” was her reply. “They don’t bother is and we don’t bother them.”

I had found a common point of contact between us but it continued to make no sense.

“They became commonplace some twenty years ago,” she continued. “What type did you see?”

“Circular, sort of grey or silver, and travelling much faster than the plane,” I offered but why was I trying to speak normally when the entire situation was crazy?

“Ah,” she explained. “One of the older types, I would assume.”

I was truly losing the plot, I was sure of it. I didn’t feel well.

“Drink up,” she prompted, “that’s a good whiskey, not to be wasted.”

It hadn’t tasted at all pleasant but I needed to move forward somehow, remove anything that was causing a connection between my sanity, the Stewardess and the rest of the plane; this was crazy. So I tilted my head back and sunk the draught in a single gulp.

“You’re not supposed to do that,” she exclaimed. “Whiskey is not just for drinking enjoyment; it’s medicinal and might make you very ill drinking it like that. You must know that surely, don’t you?”

I didn’t because this whole thing, whatever it was or wherever I might be, it was crazy. I kept thinking that, the word ‘crazy’ kept bouncing between my ears most unpleasantly. I was starting to hope that the men in white coats might actually be waiting for me. I had to get off this plane, get out of the nightmare and somehow wake up to sanity.

Whatever was in that drink was much more than simple whiskey as I felt my senses somehow being suppressed, turned off and blurred in the way that a good half dozen of the good stuff might do.

The last thing I felt as I dropped without any sort of control into the warmth of oblivion was a heavy blanket being placed round my shoulders.

How long I had been ‘out of it’ I had no idea but I awoke slowly with a thick head and the words of the Stewardess, “Seat belt Sir; please fasten it now as we are coming in to land in a few minutes.”

She stared at me as I reached for and found the two ends of the seat belt and snapped them shut.

“Thank you Sir,” as she walked on further down the aisle.

“Are you quite well?” the lady to my left asked. “You’ve been sleeping the ‘sleep of the dead’ for the last thirty minutes and quite grey as well.”

“I’m fine,” I lied not knowing what to say. “Just very tired,” I continued the lie.

“Where’s my blanket gone?” I queried more of myself than anything.

Even the young lad sat next to the aisle was leaning forward to look past his mother to stare at me in querying disbelief. I couldn’t bring myself to try some sort of admonishment; it was me that really was the spectacle, something to stare at.

Now my head really spun. I was back in row 25 in my window seat.

“We shall be landing at Faro in about fifteen minutes,” the Pilot’s voice came over the tannoy. “The weather is fine, a balmy twenty five with clear skies. Thank you for choosing ourselves to fly with. Have a good day.”

“Are you really OK?” the lady to my left queried. “You’ve turned grey again.” 

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