suffocate

horrors and dread #4: Hey readers! I've taken some time off work to focus on me & my writing. It means you'll get more stories in March. I wrote this yesterday on the plane. I'm not sorry.

You sit in your plastic moulded airline seat, flicking through the in-flight shop magazine. Picking your poison. A spectrum of beautiful men and women flutter past, those who want to be celebrities, those who already are, and those who’ve been and whose stars are fading. All promoting fragrances that cost more than a week of food for the average family.

The stewardess is nearing now. ‘Anything from the shop?’ she calls out to each lane of passengers.

You watch an old lady nudge her husband and wave her card in the air, calling out random items. Buying junk on a plane is spectacle, buying as a showpiece. She doesn’t have long left. None of them do. You wait your turn; your fingers lightly tap a rhythmical beat on the face of the products you’ve chosen. She finally reaches your aisle - your eyes meet, hers desperate and yours hungry. A perfect match. You jab at the magazine; at what you want. Two specific scents researched methodically. She nods, ‘A lovely present for the wife!’ she gushes robotically, noting the ring on your hand, she can’t know it’s fake.

Then she’s handing them over, in exchange your thin plastic card taps the machine, and the perfumes are yours. The stewardess moves on and you quickly run your fingers over the tight plastic packaging, flicking at it with your nail, lifting it away from the box – then onto the next.

There is a young boy next to you and his mother after him. Across the aisle is the rest of the large family: dad with the two daughters. You should feel bad for what you are going to do. But you don’t. The mother watches you intently, why is he opening it on the plane she must be wondering but by then they are both out. You’ve dropped the lids, torn boxes, and crinkled wrapping to the floor.

‘Oh sir, please my son has an allergy-’ the mother begins but both your index fingers are fixed firm to the releases on both bottles and you’ve started to spray.

The boy coughs first and there is a minor grunt-shout from the father, but it’s choked out as the smothering cloud engulfs the surrounding rows. The sickly cloying fragrance hovers on the edge of your smell but you can hold your breath for a long time. You’ve trained for this. You will see it through. The spluttering ripples through the plane as the pistons in the bottles spit out more and more of the suffocating mist. Mixed together the combination stings eyes and clogs throats, within a minute the boy is convulsing, and the parents too panicked to stop you.

More and more of the toxic cloud displaces what’s left of the once breathable air. There is no escape for anyone. Modern planes recycle their air - when people could smoke they had to flush it out but now it’s just recycled. Stale disgusting air pumped back in to fumigate everyone on board.

Tears stream down your face, your eyeballs are pickling in the putrid juices they’re sweating out. The boy and his family are still now. People don’t seem to be able to scream as every attempt to do so exposes their throats and lungs to the worst of it. An elderly couple are choking on their own vomit, a gothy teenager is bleeding from her eyes, and the stewardesses attempts to raise the alarm with the pilot fade. Relentlessly you mash the triggers on the bottles, years of video games have trained you for this. Your fingertips are wet from the liquid, and although you’re in blinding agony, you’re content that there is no escape for anyone - including yourself. The sprays click empty as the last remaining passengers crumble into weeping silent wreckages.

Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash