Chapter 3 #2, Winging It

Chapter 3 #2

The morning’s hangover eases by the time I’ve taken an Uber home and sat through two episodes of Schitt’s Creek.

Soumia’s taken her place on the opposite end of the sofa, her hair scraped back so tight that it’s lifted her eyebrows an inch from her lashes, her head buried firmly in her cabin safety manual.

Even in loungewear, she looks ready to serve the business class cabin.

Not only do Soumia and I live together, but we work together too.

Both cabin crew for Tiny World Airlines.

A relatively new start-up, it has been going for just over two years, flying non-stop on some of the world’s oldest aircraft, from Manchester to North American and Canadian airports you’ve never heard of.

Soumia and I met on the same initial course at our previous airline over ten years ago.

We bonded over four weeks of intense Safety and Emergency Procedures and Fire and Smoke training – we were shoved into a fake cabin which is filled with smoke and told to crawl on our hands and knees whilst wearing a smoke hood which, ironically, made it impossible to breathe.

Soumia did it all with elegance, even when wearing a black boiler suit, tying a piece of rope around her waist to emphasise her hips.

Her red lipstick never smudged, and her shoulder-length copper hair was held in place by so much hair spray that she could stand in a cyclone and not a strand would be out of place.

She could be teleported to the glamour days of the 60s when crew modelled white gloves and delicate hats and fit right in.

Soumia said we’d be friends for life after we completed our ditching drills.

At five on a drizzly morning, we rocked up at a swimming pool in Slough to put into practice what we’d do if an aircraft ever had an emergency landing on water.

Before the regular swimmers arrived, a life raft was inflated and floated into the deep end.

For the first part of the exercise, we had to jump into the pool, tread water, put on a life jacket, find a partner, and then tow them to the other side of the pool, thus saving their life.

Naturally, I teamed up with Soumia who’d already confessed to me that she couldn’t swim and had lied on the application form.

I reassured her by telling her she wouldn’t need to, as if she landed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, she’d die in an instant anyway.

Since Sully’s miracle landing on the Hudson, people have a false sense of security about landing on water.

I doubt he would have been so successful faced with ten-foot waves three hours from land.

Once the swimming was complete, it was time to climb into the life raft; a pass or fail element.

I went in first with the plan of dragging Soumia up and over the side if she could just get a leg on the rope ladder that floated in the water.

I hauled myself in by leaning so far forward over the top of the raft that I went arse over tit and splattered on the floor with all the grace of a wet fart. Still, I was in, and I’d passed.

Soumia waited till last, patiently bobbing up and down holding onto the side of the raft with the stubbornness of a floating turd.

Determined as she was, she just didn’t have the strength to pull herself in.

Exhausted, on her fifth attempt she let go and splashed back into the pool, the lifejacket keeping her afloat.

Letting her fail wasn’t an option. I sat on the ledge of the raft, threw my legs over the side, and splashed back into the water below.

I grabbed Soumia and told her to get a fucking grip, like real friends do, and pulled the rope ladder towards her.

I put her feet on the bottom rung and told her to stand whilst I pushed her arse up with all the strength I had.

She landed in the centre of the raft like the catch of the day being released from a trawling net.

I’ve been the Leonardo to her Kate ever since.

In return, she let me sit next to her and copy in the final exam when I got drunk with the rest of the trainees and forgot to revise.

Electronic tests have since put a stop to that.

The credits roll on the opening of the third episode of Schitt’s Creek when my phone vibrates with a notification from Grindr.

Olly4U:

Sorry I had to race off last night. Something came up