Destination Unknown
“What troubles you?” Asked Frau Schwimmer in a voice quivering on irritation. All of the other passengers were nesting comfortably in their seats, trying to catch a few hours of sleep before landing on the other side of the world. But not the young woman assigned to the aisle seat next to her.
“Nothing, um Nichts.” Thirty thousand feet below lay snow and ice infinitum. Ahead, the veil of darkness called night. Soon the plane would cut through that veil like a silver arrow rounding the curve of the earth, that is, if it didn’t crash in the frozen wastelands of Northern Canada. If that happened, Flight 32 would be lost forever. No search and rescue team would ever be able find the wreckage in all that whiteness. The passengers would have to eat each other to stay alive, like the Donner party. That is, if the plane landed intact, which it wouldn’t. It would tumble across the tundra, leaving bodies mangled in the metal as food for hungry polar bears.
The fidgeting continued. Frau Schwimmer noted the crumpled map on the young woman’s lap. “Where are you going?
“I don’t know. The town is called Gunthersblum but I can’t find it on the map.”
“We will find!” Frau Schwimmer pulled an industrial sized map of Germany out of her woven travel bag and patted the young woman on the hand. “Have not angst.”
Easy for her to say. She knows exactly where she’s going!
The plane shook violently. The seat belt lights flashed. “Air turbulence,” the pilot announced in English, then German, then French.
He’s lying. The plane’s lost an engine, sucked in a goose, or ruptured a gas line. It was going down.
Frau Schwimmer unfolded her map and calmly spread it over their two tray tables. “Ist these Gunthersblum Nord or Sud?”
“I don’t know.”
What an idiot? Frau Schwimmer’s thinking. Who flies to the other side of the world without knowing where they’re going? Certainly not her thirty year old daughter, the one already established and on her own in San Francisco.
“First we check index.” Frau Schwimmer ran her finger down the list of towns and villages: “Gunthersblum. Nein, Gunthersberg? Nein. Guntherslauten? Nein.” She turned to the hapless young woman. “You have perhaps written down the wrong name. There is no Gunthersblum.”
Dear Blogging Buddies – I’m re-editing a story that was published under the title The Graduate Present back in 2016. This story has taken me so long to write that it bears little resemblance to the maiden voyage on which it was based. Except for Herr Azmus. I have my high school yearbook to prove that he, at least, was real.
Saying nothing in particular 
Frightening post, JT. It reminds me of the series Lost. They all went down, but landed in an alternate universe. Maybe that is what will happen to these hapless people – or at least one hapless person. 🙂 I hope it has a sequel.
Thanks for reading. The young woman has a wild imagination which gets her in a lot of, what my father would have called, pickles.
My father would have called them pickles, too. I’m in a pickle right now. I accidentally posted Geoff’s first draft instead of final draft of his story. Just so you know if you want to give it another quick read! (Is my face red or green?)
Good to know pickles is a pan-anglo concept. We had pickles here too…
I think the saying comes from a time when cucumbers were pickled in large vats and if you fell in one, it might not kill you but you’d stink for a while.
Hi Jan,
Planes are like flying coffins, but comfortable until the bitter end. The big debate was where in the plane should one sit to survive a crash. That produced somebody recounting the kinds of crashes, fire, no fire, sea, no sea, mountain, no mountain, jungle, no jungle … and on and on it would go until somebody would say, it really doesn’t matter, we are all going to die anyway. Hell, a horse may drag you to death on the day before you are set to leave on your midnight flight to upper Silesia or was that lower Silesia.
And so it goes. Duke
There’s something so surreal about that first overseas flight – frightening but exciting – which I was trying to capture. And then not being able to find where you’re going on a map! I’m not a big fan of flying although my father lived to fly
Fine story. What made you decide to re-write the original piece?
The original was written from a first person point of view (the young woman) and I wanted to see how it would change from a third party POV. First party POV is hard when the character is based on a younger version of yourself! I tended to be too hard on her.
Rather delightful in a horrifyingly real kind of way…
Thanks … there’s something about that first time flying overseas – a bit frightening but exciting.
What a story. I like how you’ve told it here. Still a bit scary.
Thanks – I wasn’t sure if the style would work. But then writing is always an experiment.
Sounds intriguing, Jan! Happy re-editing!
Thanks Resa.
Hi Jan, this poor girl sounds very confused. I hope she gets over her anxieties and finds her way.
Interesting comment. She’s actually rather brave – traveling to the other side of the world to see an Uncle she hardly knows – but she has a wild imagination. If that doesn’t come across I guess I’ve got some work to do on this chapter! Thanks for your feedback!
It was Guntersblumen… Can’t find a mispelt town on a map.
This was over fifty years ago …. the maps back then were not particularly detailed especially as the war and occupation by Allied forces had changed the landscape considerably.
I understand. I was just joking. Do you mean to tell me you wrote that 50 years ago?? 😳
I went to Germany over 50 years ago and my experiences as a young American nincompoop are the basis for the novel. Unless you live in an occupied country you can never really understand the long term consequences of war. It certainly was an eye opener for me.
True. As medicine progresses, more specific types of cancer are “detected” oh well.
I understand. At that time the Us had 100s of 1000s soldiers in Germany. France had less but at least one or two army corps. Many french did their military service in Germany.