You Are Dead. [Sign Here Please]

by Andrew Stanek

  The pilot strapped on his leather flying helmet and pulled down his goggles, stubbed his cigar against the side of the plane, and thwacked the ashes out of his graying beard.

  “Alright, let’s do this,” he said. He knocked on the hatch.

  A uniformed female flight attendant opened it from inside. Her makeup was impeccable.

  “Hello Captain,” she said brightly.

  Brian goggled at her in disbelief for a second before allowing himself to be shown in and seated in the front row. There were about twenty seats inside but they were all empty except for the ones the three of them had chosen.

  The pilot clambered into the cockpit but kept the door open. There was no co-pilot.

  “It’s a good thing you folks came along,” he said, “it’s not economical to fly out to New York without passengers. I’ve been waiting for weeks.”

  “Why didn’t you just drive?” Brian called up to him.

  “Oh, I can’t do that,” the pilot called back. “I failed my driving test.”

  He began to flip switches and fiddle with the yoke.

  “Now how do you do this again?” he wondered aloud.

  After a few experimental prods at some colorful buttons, the aircraft rumbled to life. The pilot taxied out of the hangar and on to the underground runway. As he went, the stewardess began to give her pre-flight briefing.

  “Welcome to our nonstop flight to Albany from Dead Donkey, estimated flight time is however long it takes us. Please keep your arms and legs inside the aircraft at all times. This is a mandatory smoking flight. If you do not have a cigarette, please let your stewardess know and she will provide you with one. Would any hijackers aboard this afternoon please raise their hands?”

  She paused. No one raised their hands.

  “And now for the in flight safety briefing. In the event of a problem during flight, the pilot will notify us by turning on the emergency situation sign.” She gestured to a darkened sign with a picture of a man screaming on it. “This is a signal to put on your vests in the event of a water landing. You will find your vests underneath your seat.”

  Brian fished under his seat for his vest and pulled it up. It was a skier’s jacket.

  The flight attendant continued her safety briefing.

  “Due to our legal status in several states and countries, we may take anti-aircraft fire during the flight. In the event that shrapnel pierces the canopy, attempt to minimize your cross-sectional area by assuming the brace position, and staunch any bleeding by applying heavy pressure. It may become necessary to jettison the baggage mid-flight, in which case you will unfortunately lose your check-in bags. Our landing in Albany may be ‘hot,’ and you will have to disembark the aircraft before law enforcement arrives. We understand that you have a choice in airlines and would like to thank you for flying with us.”

  There was a lengthy silence when she finished.

  The aircraft sped down the runway until it got to the slanty bit at the end, through which they could see daylight. The pilot whooped and the Flying Trashcan leapt into the air after it cleared the slant. They were in the sky.

  The stewardess started to push a cart full of drinks down the aisle, which was not very far since they were all seated in the front row.

  “Can I get you anything to drink?” she asked.

  Travis shook his head.

  “Nothing,” Brian said.

  “Coffee for me, please,” Nathan asked. She gave him an iced coffee, which he sipped happily.

  As he did this, the captain shouted back from the cockpit, “which way is New York again?”

  “East, captain,” the stewardess called back.

  “And which way is east again?” he asked.

  “Away from the sun,” she advised him.

  “Oh right.”

  There was a brief silence.

  “What’s that big thing in front of us?” he asked.

  The stewardess went into the cockpit to consult with him.

  “The ground,” she concluded. “You want to go away from that.”

  “Yes, I remember now,” he said. The plane veered sharply.

  The stewardess pressed a button and a little television monitor descended from the ceiling.

  “Our in flight movie is Oh The Humanity: The Hindenberg Documentary,” she informed them.

  The plane went through a patch of turbulence. At least, Brian hoped it was turbulence.

  The waitress came back with a few menus and passed them out.

  “We will be serving dinner on this flight,” she told them. “You have a choice of steak and rice or the vegetarian option, tofu pot pie with caesar salad. There are several available sides.”

  “Thank you,” Nathan said. He opened the menu and started looking over it. Meanwhile, Brian and Travis watched the documentary, which seemed to be looping footage of the Hindenberg’s crash over and over again in ultra-ultra high definition.

  “Could you possibly put something else on?” Brian asked after it showed this for the thirtieth or fortieth time. “Maybe something a little more humorous?”

  “As it happens, we do have another movie,” the flight attendant said. “I’ve been told it’s funny. Would you like me to put that on?”

  “Alright,” Brian said. “What is it?”

  “Snakes on a Plane.”

  “Some of these desserts look very tasty,” Nathan said, staring at a picture of a cupcake on the menu. “I enjoy flying.”

  “I don’t enjoy this flight at all,” Brian said coldly.

  “Oh, that’s too bad. What about you, Travis?”

  “I don’t believe in flying,” he said stiffly. “I do not believe aircraft can fly.”

  “Then what are we doing right now?” Brian asked him.

  “Falling.”

  Travis Erwin Habsworth had an immense talent for being both right and wrong at the same time, and this instance was a perfect example of that talent. He was wrong because airplanes can fly. He was right because they were, in fact, falling.

  Chapter 21

  It just so happened that in a classroom not too terribly far from Dead Donkey, a teacher was attempting to explain to a class that airplanes stay up due to a scientific law called Bernoulli’s Principle, which is very tricky to understand and often misstated.

  The teacher in this particular classroom was explaining that airplanes can stay in the air because the pressure under the wing is greater than the pressure over the wing, thereby creating a net up force on the wing. The net up force on the wing is due to Bernoulli’s Principle, which says that air moves faster in low pressure regions. This, the teacher explained, is because air in a relatively low pressure region is by definition moving from a high pressure region, meaning the air is being pushed-

  A student raised his hand and asked but what if the air is moving from a lower pressure region into the low pressure region? Then, he reasoned, wouldn’t it be in a low pressure region but moving slowly?

  At this point the teacher reached over and grabbed a tool he used for dealing with smart-aleck kids who asked tricky questions. It was a heavy stone-tipped cane that he called “the Educator,” and he used it to strike a firm blow on the head of the student who had asked the question, causing the student to take a brief nap and allowing the teacher to continue with the lecture.

  Right, he said, so the point was that air is pushed from the high pressure region into the low pressure region, at which point it is moving fast. So air in low pressure regions is faster than air in high pressure regions. So if the air is moving faster over the wing than beneath it, the air under the wing must be exerting a higher pressure up than the air above the wing is down, and therefore the airplane can fly.

  But, asked the student, now recovering from the solid crack to the head, does that just mean any fast-moving air will do? If so, why don’t they mount engines over the wings so they can control how fast the air goes over it? Or why wouldn’t they put big metal flaps beneath the wings to trap air there, so it moves
really slowly-

  The teacher gave him another dose of The Educator and he took a short nap.

  So, the teacher continued, the point is that wings on airplanes are cleverly designed so that air moves over the wing faster than it moves under the wing, so the pressure will be lower over the wing and so on. This took advantage of something called the equal transit time theory. Basically, the teacher explained, air had to be able to pass the same distance over and under the wing in the same amount of time, because the airplane was only moving at one speed. The airplane’s wing was shaped such that there was a curvy, bulgy part on the top of the wing, which in turn forced the air to move faster over the top of the wing to travel the same distance in the same amount of time as the air under the bottom of the wing. And this, he said (with the self-satisfied, smug, knowing grin of someone who has just explained something to a captive audience of children) is why airplanes stay-

  One of the first student’s friends raised his hand. But if that was really true, he asked, why could airplanes fly upside down? He was pretty sure airplanes could fly upside-down. He’d been to an airshow with his aunt and uncle and seen pilots flying their planes the wrong way round and everything.

  A third student piped in that he’d opened their textbook to the section on the history of flight and it showed a picture of the Wright Brother’s plane. The wings of the Wright Flyer, he complained, were completely flat. How did it fly?

  And what about biplanes? Someone else remembered biplanes. They had flat wings too. How could the pressure above the lower wing be lower than below the lower wing, but higher than above the upper wing? After all, both wings were going at the same speed.

  A fifth asked about planes that didn’t have wings. He remembered seeing a news article about how NASA was working on something called a lifting body, which could stay in the air even though it didn’t have wings at all.

  The teacher’s fingers were drumming to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic on the handle of The Educator, and he gave all of the students who had spoken up a good, hard thwacking. But by this time a bunch of other students had gotten out their smartphones and were looking at videos on the internet of laboratory dye studies demonstrating that the equal transit time explanation was wrong, and that air did not in fact move over and under the wing in the same amount of time and it all had to do with circulating currents in the reference frame of the aircraft and the obstacle effect. As it so happened, the equal transit time explanation - which was mandated by their school’s curriculum - was wrong. It’s okay, though. It wasn’t a very good school.

  Confronted with this rebellion, the teacher told them in a grim, deadpan sort of a voice that they would be tested on everything he’d lectured on here today and they’d better darn well know it word-perfect come the exam. Then he whacked them all to sleep and smashed their fancy smartphones.

  Unfortunately, Mr. Travis Erwin Habsworth had never attended a class like this, or he would have known better than to say that he didn’t believe planes could fly, because it would have earned him a damn good thrashing.

  All the students learned an important lesson that day, which was that you shouldn’t argue with a man with a heavy wooden stick. Sadly, they had yet to do their lesson on Teddy Roosevelt and therefore hadn’t learned this in time to save themselves a lot of napping.

  Fortunately for them, though, they would never have to take the test that their teacher had threatened them with, because just after they all left school for home to do their homework and raid their Advil supplies, the Flying Trashcan crashed into the schoolhouse, taking the teacher, and The Educator, with it.

  Which all just goes to show you that you shouldn’t believe everything you learn in school.

  Chapter 22

  Brian started screaming as the airplane plunged towards the ground.

  “It’s okay,” the pilot shouted from the cockpit. “I’m aiming for that school!”

  The airplane was making a loud screeching noise. The engine sputtered and died and there was a sickening wrenching sound as one of the odd number of wings ripped off and careened past their window.

  “I think I’m ready to order,” Nathan said happily. “I’ll have the steak.”

  The stewardess got up from her seat to take his order. This unto and of itself was an impressive feat, since the g-forces they were pulling were threatening to toss her around like a rag doll, but the key to working in the service industry is to maintain composure at all times.

  “What would you like to drink with that?” she asked him kindly.

  “Do you have Coke?”

  “Pepsi okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Brian continued to scream incoherently.

  “I’d like the chocolate mousse for dessert,” Nathan added. “And a side salad if you have them.”

  Travis watched this impassively from his seat.

  “This is why I didn’t think it was a good idea to go to the airport,” he said briefly.

  “Would you like anything?” the flight attendant asked him.

  “No thank you,” Travis said politely. “I’m not hungry at the moment.”

  Brian was still screaming.

  In the cockpit, the pilot was wrestling with the controls, which did nothing to increase Brian’s confidence in him. He was fairly sure that you were supposed to work the pedals with your feet and the yoke with your hands, rather than what the pilot was doing. Smoke was filling the cockpit (not because the plane was on fire; the pilot was still smoking) and Brian was fairly certain that some of the things ripping off the airframe were quite important to their continued airworthiness.

  He screamed and screamed.

  “It’s okay!” the pilot shouted back from the cockpit to reassure him. “Look on the bright side. The flight’s gonna be a lot shorter than you thought.”

  The stewardess re-emerged from the kitchen area and handed Nathan a salad and can of cola. Nathan opened the can and most of the liquid spilled out due to the funny sort of spin that the plane was doing now.

  “Just try to think of this as a very exciting landing,” the pilot shouted back from the cockpit.

  “Shouldn’t you be radioing for help?” Travis asked. He believed in radios.

  “What?”

  “The radio,” Travis said calmly. “Shouldn’t you be using it?”

  “What’s a radio?” the pilot shouted back.

  “Or shouldn’t you at least be lowering the landing gear?” Travis inquired, though he admitted this was a bit on the optimistic side.

  “Oh, I don’t have any of that stuff,” Travis said. “We never had any to begin with. The maintenance costs - you wouldn’t believe them - just for a bunch of wheels?”

  Brian stopped screaming. He had passed out from fear.

  The ground was getting bigger and bigger. Nathan watched it with a sort of vague interest as he munched on his salad. The cereal jingle was playing in his head again.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like any salad?” he asked Travis. “You look like you might be a little hungry.”

  “I’m fine, but thank you,” Travis said politely.

  “Just a bite. You should try it. It’s very good salad.”

  “Oh, fine. Just a bite.”

  Then they hit the ground, whereupon the schoolhouse the pilot was aiming at and the Flying Trashcan rather violently became the same object.

  Chapter 23

  Suddenly, Nathan found himself standing in a void of big, black nothing behind the stewardess, the pilot, and a school teacher he had never met before. The school teacher was carrying a very large beating stick. Brian and Travis were nowhere to be seen.

  “Where are we?” the pilot said in obvious confusion and consternation. “Is this heaven?”

  “You have just deliberately piloted an airplane into a school,” his stewardess reminded him. “Do you really think we are in heaven?”

  “Yes?” he asked uncertainly.

  “Station Number Four, please,” the louds
peaker voice rang out, and the frumpy woman materialized. She peered unhappily at Nathan.

  “You. Fulcher’s office now. Director’s orders,” she said. The exit door appeared.

  “Thank you,” he said. Before he went he turned to the three people in line ahead of him. “If you want my advice,” he said confidentially, “don’t sign the 21B.”

  The frumpy woman scowled at him.

  About a minute later, Nathan was again seated in Director Fulcher’s familiar office.

  “Have you changed the furniture around?” Nathan asked cheerily, looking at the alternating line of seats and potted plants. “I thought it went seat-seat-seat-plant, but now it’s seat-plant-”

  “The furniture is immaterial,” Director Fulcher said coolly. (This was in fact one of the least accurate statements he had made today, but he was so frustrated he wasn’t very fussed about it.) “I understand that you have not only died again, but you have also come into contact with Mr. Travis Erwin Habsworth. Is that right?”

  “Yes,” Nathan confirmed. “We had coffee together.”

  “Your papers become less and less in order by the minute. I must advise you, Mr. Haynes, that there are few men alive less trustworthy than Mr. Habsworth. He does not believe in law, or structure, or bureaucratic execution of statutes.”

  “I think he does believe in all that. He doesn’t believe in airplanes though. He told me so.”

  “If he sought you out to make contact, he is probably just using you towards some hideous and unknowable end. Who can say what dark purpose he intends to direct you towards! Back away now, Mr. Haynes. Sign your 21B.”

  “No, I don’t think I will,” Nathan said. “Oh, and that reminds me. I want to give you this.”

  He passed him the note from the psychologist.

  “It says I am not insane.”

  “It says you were charged $6.80 for several cups of coffee and a bagel,” Director Fulcher said, reading it.

  “Oh, right, sorry,” Nathan said apologetically. “This is the one that says I’m not insane.”