Photography by Yew Wey Lim

It was precisely two hours and 28 minutes into the flight when Dr VonWinkle realised he had a problem. It was one he had not anticipated, for he had been so consumed by his complete and utter terror of planes that he had forgotten to worry about the myriad other discomforts that might be had over the four-hour journey. He hadn’t even thought of Martha.

***

Dr VonWinkle had sweated the whole way down the runway. He’d taken to dabbing at his forehead with a tissue and had to wipe his wet palms against his tweed trousers every few minutes. He’d chosen the window seat in row 44, right at the back of the plane. When he first bought the ticket, the choice of seat selection debilitated him. He’d done the research: sitting at the front of the plane held no benefits, so that was discounted immediately; the middle of the plane offered the most stability, so this was a strong contender; and yet, in the event of an actual emergency, it was the tail that was statistically the safest. In the end, he’d gone with statistical assurance over the comfort of stability, although part of him—that awful wheedling part—wondered if it really made any difference at all in a crash: increasing his survival chances from very horribly low to just horribly low didn’t seem terribly reassuring. Having made this decision, Dr VonWinkle had moved on to the next question: window or aisle? This he’d found easier, and after not too much deliberation, he settled on the window, thinking that it might offer him some distraction from the harrowing experience of being confined to an oversized metal can. The window seat would allow him to look for signs of smoke, to watch out for birds and to observe if any giant chunks of metal were flying off the plane. But although Dr VonWinkle had been struck by a bolt of terror as the plane roared down the runway, none of the horrible things he had envisioned transpired. He felt the swoop of his stomach as the plane caught the air, and while at first this made the sweat pour heavier from his brow and pool in the creases of his palms, he began to find, to his great bewilderment, that he didn’t mind the feeling so much.

***

Dr VonWinkle’s wife had divorced him just last year. By this point, their children were mostly grown, the youngest having just left for university.

“Gerald,” Martha had said one morning as the two of them sat down for breakfast. “I’ve met someone.”

It had been no different than any other morning. Dr VonWinkle sat at the head of the table with the paper, accompanied by his usual glass of orange juice, a steaming cup of back coffee and a plate with two triangles of plain buttered toast. The comforting mumble of the radio was broken intermittently by the cooing of birds, which echoed easily through the open kitchen window.

“That’s nice dear,” he said from behind the paper.

“No, Gerald, you misunderstand me. I’ve met someone else. And I want to have a real go at it with him. Give it a real chance.”

Dr VonWinkle’s eyes flicked to his wife through his silver-framed reading glasses, and as her meaning caught him, he laid out the paper flat on the table. “Oh, you mean a fellow.”

“Yes, Gerald.”

“But Martha… I don’t understand.”

“I’m not happy here, Gerald.”

“Not happy?”

“No. I’m not happy.”

Taken quite by surprise, Dr VonWinkle stared down at his paper and attempted to smooth the wrinkles against the table.

“And you think that this fellow, this chap that you’ve met, you think that he’ll make you happy?”

“Yes, I do.”

He nodded stiffly. Feeling incredibly awkward and not knowing what else to do, he took up the paper once more in his hands and studied it. He picked at the thread of where he’d left off, but no matter how he tried, he could no longer seem to grasp it. It all meant nothing now.

Immediately after breakfast, Martha packed her clothes into suitcases, saying she’d be back and forth over the next week or so to box up her things, and two weeks later, she was gone entirely, leaving an empty house in her wake. Dr VonWinkle never realised, until that moment sitting somewhat stupefied on his bare mattress, that of all the things that had filled their home, almost none of them had belonged to him. The divan, the sofa and the coffee table had all been hand-selected by Martha to fit her eclectic tastes. There was the sideboard that was filled with tarnished silver and fine China, none of which he could ever recall using. There was the printed rug from the antique store, the pink shaggy lamp, the photo frames of various sizes filled with children and memories—hell, even the linen sheets and the green ruffled duvet cover that had lined their bed for the last decade were gone. It had all been Martha’s. She’d left behind the photographs that contained him, and he now saw, with burning clarity, that there were not many of those at all.

***

Dr VonWinkle sat with his knees pressed into the back of the seat in front of him. Despite the divorce occurring nearly a year ago, nothing about the house had changed much since she left. He hadn’t attempted to fill the empty spaces with more furniture, new pictures or any curious new items. No, the only observable difference in the house was the cluttered piles of newspapers now scattered throughout the rooms; he couldn’t bring himself to throw out a paper since that fateful morning when Martha packed her bags.

Ding! Dr VonWinkle startled. There was a crackle, and then a female voice echoed through the cabin.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has switched off the seatbelt sign. You may now move around the cabin.”

Dr VonWinkle huffed a heavy breath out through his nose; now he could sit back, relax and enjoy the rest of the flight. That is, if he could manage it. It seemed his seat partner had no problem at all in that regard. Before the plane had even rumbled towards the runway, the man had nestled comfortably down in his seat, black eye-mask firmly secured, and dozed off immediately—it was remarkable! The man slept through take-off, then lunch, then coffee rounds. But this incredible display of nonchalance, or bravery—possibly even narcolepsy—was coming to be a problem, for in celebrating the overcoming of his own meek nature (for what was perhaps the first time in his life), Dr VonWinkle had taken a small bottle of wine with his lunch. And it wasn’t just the wine either; there was also the bottle of water that had accompanied the meal tray, and the cup of black coffee, too. This left him with a very full feeling low in his stomach and an ever-increasing urgency to be relieved of it. He hated to do it, to wake up his sleeping neighbour, but he’d waited long enough.

“Er-hem.” Dr VonWinkle coughed. No response. “Er-hum!” Slightly louder. Nothing. “Excuse me sir,” he called, this time even daring to place his hand on the man’s arm. Dr VonWinkle shook the arm lightly. He shook the arm less lightly. “Sir!” Good lord, the man was out cold! He almost reached out to check for a pulse; indeed, he would have, if not for noticing the heavy rising and falling of the man’s chest.

What was he to do? He cast his eyes around desperately, but no one met his gaze; no one had noticed his predicament, and why would they? A loud noise, then, that would have to be it. He raised his hands up, right next to the man’s head, and gave two sharp claps, as loud as he could.

“Shhhh!’ An angry hiss met his ears. He glanced around, and across the aisle was a lady shaking her head at him, a baby sleeping soundly in her arms. Dr VonWinkle grimaced. Loud noises, he supposed, were out. Perhaps he could slap the man across the face, just lightly. But then wouldn’t that make noise, too? And suppose the man startled… no, it didn’t seem the most ethical course of action. Maybe he should just wait it out. Dr VonWinkle paused and went to settle back into his chair, but his body wouldn’t allow it—his stomach gurgled in angry, bloated protest. Nope. He needed to go now—consequences be damned! He unbuckled his seatbelt and rose to his feet. Though it felt horribly undignified, Dr VonWinkle clambered over the slumbering man. He tried to keep his feet on the floor, to stay upright as much as possible, but there wasn’t enough room—he ended up nearly diagonal, wedging himself between the seats with a hand on each headrest. A disgruntled huff came from the seat in front of him. The lady with the baby narrowed her eyes at him, and under her furious gaze, he squeezed out of the seats and scurried away down the aisle.

The trip to the bathroom occurred without a hitch. However, as Dr VonWinkle, relieved both physically and mentally, was making his way back down the aisle, the plane lurched with a sudden jolt. No, not now, surely not now! Just a few more steps and he would be strapped back into his seat and—well, maybe not safe, but certainly safer. There was another ding overhead, and the speakers crackled to life. “Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has switched on the seatbelt sign. Please remain seated and ensure your seatbelts are fastened. We are expecting some turbulence.”

Dr VonWinkle grasped the nearest headrest tightly, his heart thumping with renewed vigour, and continued towards his seat with large, grounded steps. He made it to his row and found his seat neighbour entirely undisturbed, snoring slightly now, the eye-mask still secure. With no time to try wake the man, Dr VonWinkle began to squeeze his way back into his seat. He caught the warning glare of the woman with the baby, heard the man in the seat ahead grunt again as he pulled on the headrest to aid his clambering, and then, without warning, the plane gave a horrible shudder. It rattled and rumbled, much more intense than the previous jolt of turbulence. Dr VonWinkle’s grip was shaken, and with a yelp, he grabbed blindly at the sleeping man.

“What the—” the sleeping man awoke with a disgruntled shout, one arm flailing to push off the eye-mask and the other shoving at the doctor. He pushed the mask free. Next to them, the baby began to wail.

“What do you think you’re—get off me!”

Dr VonWinkle was mortified. He clambered and flailed and stuttered broken apologies as he fumbled his way into his own seat.

“Ow—ow!” The previously sleeping man cursed at the doctor as he floundered, and when he was finally seated, the man shot him a nasty glare.

“I am so sorry,” Dr VonWinkle tried to appease. “I wasn’t trying—it was not my intention to—”

The plane bounced and rumbled once more, and Dr VonWinkle yelped again, grasping tightly at the armrests. Finally, the plane stabilised, and the doctor made a great effort to steady his breathing. He looked around and, to his immense surprise, caught the wide-eyed gaze of the man next to him, similarly tensed and holding fast to the armrests. A moment of shared understanding passed between them.

“God, I hate flying,” said the man. “It’s bloody awful.”

Dr VonWinkle was struck with the sudden desire to laugh. “Indeed, it is,” the doctor replied.

“So, what’s got you travelling then?”

“I’m visiting my wife. Or ex-wife, I should say. Well, actually, I’m visiting my daughter.”

The man looked aghast. Dr VonWinkle wondered briefly why this was before the implication of his words caught him, causing a fresh wave of mortification.

“No, no! That’s not—I’m visiting my daughter, it’s her birthday, and my wife—ex-wife—is going to be there, too. Actually, I’ve never flown before.”

The man laughed and shuffled in his seat to rummage through one of his pockets. He pulled out a small plastic cylinder and shook it.

“Well, don’t worry, it gets easier, so long as you got the right equipment. Couple of these suckers and you’ll be out the whole journey.” The man paused and raised an eyebrow. “When you don’t get physically assaulted, that is.”

Dr VonWinkle attempted to apologise once more, but the man just laughed and held out the bottle. “You want one?”

The doctor stopped, staring at the pills. Triazolam. That was prescription grade. Funnily enough, it had never occurred to him to write himself a prescription. He hesitated, then gave a jerky nod. The man dropped a pill into his palm, and the doctor looked down at it. Really, he shouldn’t; triazolam wasn’t something to mess with, and he’d had that wine with his lunch.

“Crazy the drugs you can get these days,” noted the man as he poured a couple of pills into his own palm.

“Wait, you really shouldn’t take more than one—” but before Dr VonWinkle could finish his protest, the man had swallowed them all.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a near infinite supply of these things. My girlfriend, you see, her ex-husband is a doctor.”

Dr VonWinkle frowned. “Do they still see each other, then?”

“What—oh no, no, see, she nicked a prescription pad when she left him.” The man let out a hearty chuckle. “She took more than that too. We got a whole bunch of furniture over at our place—a whole house’s worth, I’d wager.”

The doctor was flabbergasted. “Maybe you shouldn’t be telling people this.”

The man shrugged. “Eh, what’s anybody gonna do about it? I still pay for the bloody things, it’s not like I’m stealing ‘em.”

Dr VonWinkle could not think of a single thing to say in response.

“Anyway,” the man said, “pleasant as this has been, I’m going back to sleep.”

The man pulled his eye-mask back on and nestled back in his chair, leaving Dr VonWinkle to stare down at the pill in his palm. The doctor turned it over a couple of times, then looked back at the man.  He was staring at the masked face, staring at the slack hanging mouth, when all at once he was struck by a horrible realisation. No, the odds were too great—surely it couldn’t be. But he simply had to check.

Dr VonWinkle reached out and gingerly poked at the man’s shoulder: no response. Drawing a deep breath and gathering his courage, he stretched his hand towards the man’s pocket where he now knew the secret antidote to his fear lay hidden. Cautiously, he pulled out the container of pills. The man grunted and shifted, and the doctor froze, but it was only the mindless movements of sleep. Relieved that he hadn’t woken the man for a second time, Dr VonWinkle peered down at the container. He strained momentarily to look at the prescription label where, to his own horror, right there in black print, were the two most damning words he’d ever read: VonWinkle, Martha.