on my flight home...

Whenever I board a plane or get on a rollercoaster, I tend to have these twisted, nightmarish visions of calamity in my head. I think I watched way too many Final Destination films, but I can't help but imagine that the plane will crash or that the rollercoaster device will fail.

I'm sure many paranoid people like myself get these anxious notions in their head, but mine are excruciatingly detailed. I can picture every microscopic detail like the flight attendant's facial expression on that split second her refreshment cart slides down the aisle. Or the bursting pressure of air as the plane's walls split open and the frightening feeling of free-falling in the open sky. Or how my family will hear about the unfortunate news of their daughter's untimely death through a sterile phone call from ______ Airlines. My grandma's wail of sorrow... my brother's look of disbelief. And how my family will become that family that the whole Korean-American community will know about from the Korea Dailies. My funeral, my slideshow... and more details... but 'nuff of that.

So in a way, to counter these thoughts, I start very carefully observing the other people on my flight. Yeah sure... I can be one of those people that can fall into the hands of an early, unfortunate death (In a teen horror film, I would so be killed off early... its always the scared ones that die first- well the easily scared and overly confident). But look at that nice-looking guy sitting across the aisle? He's on the blackberry talking to his wife, whose eagerly waiting back home with his two little daughters, baking a "welcome back daddy" cake. He can't die now, can he? And what about the old couple with the Jersey accents sitting right next to me, complaining about the cold air and the lack of blankets. There's no way such people could die in a freak accident on a plane. They will live to their dying day in their old apartment, sitting side-by-side on the couch, complaining about something. And that little five-year-old boy up in the front with the glasses that are too big for his face... you can tell he's buggin' the crap out of the lady next to him as he keeps pushing her seat. Annoying kids don't die on planes. They have to keep living and grow up to be annoying adults.

As I look at the people around me, I imagine their antics, their hang-ups, their families, their lovers, their histories, and their lives to be lived and it brings me peace.