joyful!

Desperation lit its eyes. Its mind was numb and reflexes had taken over. The man continued to walk towards it. His lips were moving. For a moment, the calf stopped to listen. He was crooning something. It sounded gentle to the little one's ears. It hesitated. Looked at the approaching figure warily. Twitched its tail. Then as the man came nearer, it took one faltering step forward. The man was now nearly within touching distance. Suddenly the calf realised that its chance had gone! It was too late to run now...  there was nowhere to run anyway...  it was cornered from all sides by vehicles and this man, who was by this time looming large like a mountain in front of it. Then before it knew what was happening, the man had reached out, slipped a thin rope around the calf's neck and was leading him away to safety.

Hours later, the calf was frisking happily by its mother, the near death experience now all but erased from its innocent mind. Refuge can come in many forms, but none so welcome as that which is unexpected.

Jump Seat

by

Susan Verrochi

“Flight attendant, prepare for departure,” ordered first officer Dale Wolenski, his voice barely audible over the cabin PA system.

“Thank God,” Carolyn Little thought, as she lowered herself onto the jump seat. Flight 2739 had been sitting on the tarmac at Westchester County Airport now for an hour and a half. The rain had stopped a half hour ago, but then there was the inevitable backup of planes on the runway, waiting for takeoff. The passengers had gotten crankier by the minute, demanding beverages, blankets, pillows, use of the bathroom. More than one “client”, as she was now supposed to call them, had suggested that the airline should be giving out free booze as a make-good. Passengers never seemed to understand that the airline had no control over the weather.

Carolyn dimmed the cabin lights for takeoff, which was her final pre-flight duty. As she did, she reviewed her mental checklist. Baggage was stowed properly, though she’d let the little girl in 8A keep three stuffed animals on her lap after she’d promised to hold on to them tightly. Everyone’s seatbelts were securely fastened. Electronic devices had been turned off prior to departure, although she suspected the teen-aged boy in 5D still had his iPod turned on.

Tray tables and seatbacks were in the upright position. The large man in 10B had given her a problem with that, claiming that his seat wouldn’t go up all the way; that he’d tried pressing the button and nothing had happened. When Carolyn offered to try the mechanism herself, he’d relented. Probably he’d been angling for an upgrade to one of the front row seat, which passed for first class on this small plane.  But on this tightly packed Canadair Regional Jet, those seats were all taken as well. All that remained was to take her place in the jump seat and fasten her own seatbelt, which she now did.

Flight 2739 was fully loaded. 1A, B and C, the last three seats on the plane, had been given to a family who’d been bumped up from coach when their seats had been given to standby passengers. The last minute arrivals’s connecting flight had been over an hour late and no one thought they'd arrive in time, but somehow they had. They were rewarded by plush leather seats and free cocktails, which the two parents had gratefully enjoyed. Carolyn smiled at the boy in the family; six or seven years old, she figured. His large glasses made him look like a little blonde bug. A good little boy, he’d asked for a glass of milk, which they didn’t have in the galley, and he’d happily settled for Sprite instead, grinning at Carolyn like a co-conspirator.

As they left the gate and taxied along the runway, gaining momentum, the veteran flight attendant surveyed the seats. It looked like one of the seats in the last row, 13, was empty. She thought she must be mistaken, though, as she glanced at the passenger manifest. 13D, the window, was Brian MacElroy and 13C, the aisle, was Elizabeth MacElroy, presumably the wife, mother or daughter of Brian. Both seats were taken, and both passengers had checked in. Odd. Elizabeth must be a very small woman, or a child, and she must be leaning over close to Brian to not be visible from Carolyn’s jump seat vantage point. Fear of flying, perhaps.

She felt the familiar lightness as the plane’s wheels left the runway. Even after twenty-two years of nearly constant travelling, the moment of lift off never failed to take Carolyn’s breath away. What was the quote, again?  Something about “slipping the surly bonds of earth and dancing the skies on laughter-silvered wings.” It never failed to amaze her, and she was always happiest when the jump seat had a window view. The ground at night was a black velvet table, scattered with golden strings of rubies, emeralds and amber. She gazed to the south and saw the illuminated skyline of Manhattan below her as the aircraft climbed into the night sky.

Now, the plane banked sharply to the right and began heading west; Chicago was the final destination tonight. The ground lighting thinned as the aircraft climbed over the less populous areas of New York State. Ahead, she could just make out the lights of a small city near a bridge; Tarrytown, most likely.

Staring out of the window, her thoughts scattered, Carolyn’s eyes were drawn to the beautiful imagery of the night sky. The lights danced below her and formed into familiar shapes as the plane climbed higher and higher. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open as she stared down into one particular grouping of lights.

That's not possible, thought Carolyn. It appeared that the lights were spelling out characters. A short straight line that looked like the number 1, then a squiggle that resembled a 3, and finally what looked like an open parenthesis: could it be a letter C? “13C”. She closed her eyes tightly and rubbed her forehead. Her eyes were playing tricks on her. It had been a long day in an even longer week. She’d been in eleven cities in the past five days, with only one night passed in her hometown of Cincinnati. She’d be deadheading back home tonight after she arrived in Chicago.

Opening her eyes again and gazing once more out the small round window fixed into the cabin door, Carolyn looked down at that same area just to the left of the bridge. “13C,” the golden shapes called out to her again. Below them, now, another message in lights was forming. “HELP”, was the message this time. Without another thought to the unreality of her situation, Carolyn unstrapped her safety belt and jumped to her feet. The seat hinge sprang back up into place as she rushed down the narrow aisle of the aircraft.

She reached row 13 in a few seconds. Fast asleep in seat D, his mouth slightly open, gentle snores emanating from his stuffy nose, was a man in his early thirties with a thick head of curly brown hair; Brian MacElroy. She remembered him now, a stout, grinning man with Down’s Syndrome boarding the plane with his elderly mother. Seat 13C, the aisle seat, was empty.

Carolyn wheeled around behind her, and using as calm a voice as she was able to muster, said to the college student seated in 13B, “Excuse me miss, was there a woman in this seat before?” The plane was still ascending fairly sharply, and the flight attendant had to grip the two seat cushions on either side of her firmly to remain standing upright.

“Yeah, there was an old lady there. I think she snuck in to the bathroom while you were talking to that guy,” she said, indicating the heavyset passenger in 10B. Carolyn turned around again to the back of the plane. The indicator on the restroom door said “Vacant,” which was probably why it hadn’t occurred to her before that someone was in the lavatory.

The flight attendant pulled open the door and peered, with some trepidation, into the small space beyond. The woman inside was small and gray. Her body, fully-clad in a mauve pantsuit, was slumped forward, partially onto the sink counter. There was a bruise on her forehead, just over her right eye, where she had made unfortunate contact with the water faucet.

Carolyn took in these details and then everything happened at once. She grabbed the phone at the rear of the aircraft and punched the button which connected her to the cockpit.

“Captain, return to base, we have a passenger requiring medical attention. Repeat, return to base – emergency medical situation in the cabin.” She disconnected from the cockpit without waiting for a reply, and punched another button on the phone which allowed her to address the entire cabin. With more calm in her voice than she felt, Carolyn announced,

“Attention passengers, is there a medical professional on board the plane? We have a sick passenger in the rear of the plane. If you are a medical professional, please report to the rear of the aircraft. We will be returning to Westchester County Airport immediately. Please remain in your seat with your seatbelts fastened unless you are a medical professional.” In one fluid motion, she slammed the phone down and reached into the restroom, grabbing Elizabeth MacElroy under her armpits. She lifted the woman, who  weighed no more than ninety pounds, gently laid her on the aisle between the rear seats and began to administer chest compressions.

Out of her peripheral vision, she saw that nearly every passenger on the plane had twisted around to get a better view of the tragedy as it unfolded. She also saw, with a grateful heart, that the father from the late-arriving family in the first row was in the aisle, retrieving a case from the overhead bin. He arrived at the back of the plane, seconds later, informing Carolyn that he was a nurse practitioner, that she was doing a great job and that he would take over from here.

In 13D, Brian MacElroy slept on peacefully.

Exhausted, Carolyn slid from her squatting position down the rear wall of the plane and sat for just a moment, allowing a shuddering sigh to escape her lips as she issued a silent prayer. “Please God, do not let the mother of this man die on board this plane.” She proceeded to bargain, promising that she would attend church once again, that she would never smoke another cigarette, that she would stop judging the relative tightness and/or skimpiness of her sister-in-law’s clothing. All of this, if only Elizabeth MacElroy could have another day with her son.

As the plane banked, heading back to Westchester County Airport, Carolyn saw the color slowly return to the face of the old woman. Her eyes fluttered briefly, rolled closed again for an instant and then flew open wide. She began to cough, and now her cheeks were blessedly flush. She attempted to raise herself into a seated position, but Carolyn gently held her shoulders down.

“Just rest, Mrs. MacElroy, we’ll have you back on the ground shortly. You’ve been ill, you need to rest.”

“Is Brian alright?” she said with a hint of Scottish brogue.

“Yes, yes, he’s just fine. Sleeping peacefully,” and she pointed up to the woman’s son, still snoring away in 13D.

“Praise God,” said Elizabeth. “I felt nauseous, thought I was air sick. Brian took a Dramamine, but I didn’t,” she mumbled.

The nurse practitioner shushed her. “Try and rest now. You’re in good hands. We’ll get you to a hospital just as soon as we land.”

“Please, help me into my seat,” she said. Carolyn and the nurse gently lifted her back into 13C. As they did, there came a familiar clunk as the landing gear emerged from the belly of the jet. Kneeling in the aisle of the last row of the plane to fasten Mrs. McElroy’s seatbelt around her lap, Carolyn Little recalled the end of the poem she had thought of earlier. “And while with silent, lifting mind I've trod / The high untrespassed sanctity of space... / ...put out my hand, and touched the face of God.”*

The noise of the landing gear, or perhaps the applause of the nearby passengers, woke Brian McElroy out of his slumber.

“Mom!” he said, “Are we there already? Where’s your seatbelt? Why isn’t your seatbelt securely fastened?”

“Everything’s going to be alright Brian,” his mother assured him. “This nice lady was just helping me with it.”

Author Note:*These linesof poetry are from the poem “High Flight,” by John Gillespie Magee Jr., written in 1941 during the time he served in WWII as a fighter pilot. He died shortly after sending these words in a letter to his mother.