Dreams: Flight

"Captain Mike, at your service!" the clean cut man bellowed as I boarded the small jet. "And this is my first mate-"

"Co-captain," the taller man butted in. "Dwi- I mean, Kurt. Kurt Drute," he said with a snigger. He looked to his companion with a sheepish grin, as though he had just unveiled a gift and was awaiting approval.

Captain Mike glanced back at Kurt and giggled for an uncomfortable amount of time.

"Well, should we get going?" I added when I had decided their relishing of the apparent inside joke would not be ending anytime soon.

"Of course," Mike said through a laugh, and turned to board the plane.

I wasn't too excited when my boss told me I would be flying to South America to investigate a plant in the Amazon which could have an application in a new generation of waterproof paper products. In an attempt to win a business contract with our manufacturing company, a potential supplier had offered to fund the research and development on this newest project. I was supposed to be flying out with representatives of their company.

"So," I started, to break the uncomfortable silence that followed us onto the small plane, "you guys work for Dun-"

"Actually, no," Kurt cut in, "we are with the charter company. We will be your pilots today." He sniggered again, glancing at Mike.

"Yup, full time, fully trained, and fully experienced jet pilots," Mike added, turning red from trying to withhold his laughter. "We will be meeting the representatives when we land in Peru."

It took longer than it should have to get the plane taxiing on the runway, and I wasn't completely satisfied with "Captain" Mike's self-proclaimed qualifications. It was a perfectly clear day, so even an inexperienced pilot shouldn't have too much trouble, I thought. It was a small plane and I was seated just behind the flight deck. The two continued to whisper to each other, both chortling as they turned knobs and flipped switches, but I couldn't make out their conversations through the hums and whirs of the plane. It wasn't until we were off the ground that I realized, to my horror, what had been so funny.

"The pilots would like to inform you that we anticipate a bumpy ride. Please keep your seatbelt fastened, your tray tables locked, and your seat in the full, upright position," Kurt droned, speaking through his hand and creating crackling noises as if to mimic a PA system.

The plane had been darting left and right uncomfortably since the wheels had left the ground. After a particularly troubling and sudden drop in altitude, the mood in the cockpit fell just as drastically.

"I think this might have been a mistake, Dwight!" Mike yelled as he struggled to regain control of the aircraft.

"Is everything oka-...wait, Dwight?!" Mike's slip had just registered in my mind. "You're Dwight Schrute of Dunder Mifflin?! And you must be Michael Scott?!" I hollered over Michael's panicked yelling, which told me that I must be right.

"That's Assistant Regional Manager of Dunder Mifflin to you," Dwight added, shrewdly.

I had heard of these two. They were notorious blockheads in the paper industry...and they were flying the airplane that I was sitting in! The severity of this realization hit me square in the chest. I'm going to die, I thought, as my stomach sank and I struggled to breathe.

Dwight turned to me suddenly, thrusting a large backpack at me. "Put this on," he said, curtly.

Confused, I strapped on the backpack as Dwight quickly instructed me in the details of skydiving. Before I could understand what was happening, a violent rush of air tugged at me as a bright light filled the fuselage.

"Remember what I said about when to pull the chute," Dwight said, as Michael continued to scream psychotically from the cockpit.

"Wait, what did you-" I yelled, but it was too late. Dwight had shoved me out the hatch before the words could escape my lips. My stomach, which had sunk earlier, was now doing its best to force its way out of my body. I tumbled like a rag doll through the surging air. Panicked, I tried to recall what I had seen of skydiving on TV. I put my arms and legs out, spread eagle, and to my surprise I found myself staring straight down at planet Earth. My body had stopped spinning, but my head was still riding a tilt-a-whirl. Was this really happening? Surely this was a dream. Time seemed to be moving slower.

If this was a dream, I thought, I could do whatever I wanted, right? If I focus hard enough, I bet I could fly. Fly, I repeated it over and over again in my head, fly, fly, fly.

Believing I had done it, I gave my arms a flap...and continued my rapid descent. Ice filled my veins as I realized that this was no dream. I was falling through the air, plummeting to my death, because some idiot had decided it would be a funny prank to play airplane pilot with a real airplane. My only chance was that this backpack Dwight had handed me before shoving me out of the plane was actually a parachute, like he had mentioned. I wasn't hopeful. As the shapes below continued to grow larger and larger, I decided now was as good a time as any to pull the chute. I grabbed the metal ring which rested over my heart, said a quick prayer, and pulled down with all my might.

My stomach made another drastic descent as the rest of my body was lurched upward by the parachute. After the initial shock of the chute opening and filling with air, I became aware of a sudden feeling of weightlessness. I looked around, taking in the surroundings. The green Earth had slowed its growth, and I could see what looked like a dense forest below me. Through the forest ran a great river, wide enough to make an easy target for an inexperience parachute driver. As I pulled the chute handles to adjust my flight trajectory, I thought to myself, this could have been much, much worse.

I used the last peaceful moments of my gliding decline to rest in the beauty around me, made more sublime by the sensation of floating effortlessly through the air. Just as I came level with the canopy of the trees on the bank of the river, I spotted a nearby clearing where someone had made camp. I made a note of its direction as it disappeared from view. I would have to hope that someone at that camp could help me.

"WOOOOOOHOOOOO! OH, YEAH!" someone began to yell right as I braced myself for my landing in the river. As I came up out of the water, I saw Dwight and Michael dragging their wet parachutes onto the riverbank.

"That was awesome!" Dwight howled towards to sky, beating his chest in triumph. "I feel like we're behind enemy lines in the jungles of Vietnam," Dwight said, giddy with excitement. All at once, he dropped straight to the ground, looking over his shoulders suspiciously and army crawling behind a large fallen log.

"Dwight! Shut it! There could be cannibals waiting in the trees," Michael whisper-yelled through clenched teeth as he joined Dwight behind the log.

This day just gets better and better, I thought to myself as I swam over to the shore, doing everything I could to avoid the awareness of Michael and Dwight. I had decided my chances of survival were no worse on my own as they would be with those two.

The End

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I'm finding this project to be way harder than I had originally thought. The first post "The Restaurant" kind of came together on its own because the dream was fairly realistic, but how do you make a dream about Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute hijacking your airplane into a workable story?! I'm not satisfied with how this ended, but I didn't know exactly how to tie it all together when there wasn't much coherence to begin with (my actual dream ended with me actually discovering that I could fly, and then landing on top of my real-life boss in the neighborhood I grew up in...none of that makes any sense).

However, I feel like this is doing wonders for my creative muscles. I'm having to work pretty hard to put this all together in a way that seems at least remotely entertaining, if not believable. Its been fun, and I feel like its making me a better writer. Any of you that might have creative writing experience, please share any feedback or writing tips you have, and I'll keep writing the weird things my subconscious mind can come up with.

I think I've been watching too much of The Office lately.

(P.S. This is totally fictional and has no connection whatsoever to Spirit Air, I just like that picture that I took. However, Spirit Air, if you wanna drop me some coins for that product placement, I won't be mad.)