Abduct Me, Please!

Recently, traveling by plane has been too frequent to suit my liking. Due to some important issues that needed to be tended to, I have had to fly to Jakarta and back more than once in a month, which is rather tiring for someone with my circumstances. However, because of it I have finally settled a lot of issues, which is such a blessing that does not deserve my whining and complaining. I guess it is one of the extra blessings that come with this holy month of Ramadan. Have you realized one of the extra blessings you’ve gotten this month?

The purpose of this post is to tell you about the plane ride I just had yesterday on my way back to Malaysia. It was uneventful, very little turbulence (yes, I happen to like the turbulence). The sky was clear with little clouds. It was a perfect day for flying.

Usually I try to sleep through such rides to cancel out my boredom. I often succeed in achieving a nap for an hour or so before I wake up and get ready for the landing. Yesterday, however, I didn’t get much sleep and the plane ride wasn’t exciting at all. Automatically, my mind started to wander away to faraway places.

I was fortunate enough to get a seat right next to the window. I started to imagine what it would feel like to float through those clouds. I saw two different layers of clouds in the sky: the cumulus layer and the cirrus layer. I thought back to the moment in 4th grade when my teacher taught us about the different clouds and why they were that way. Sadly, my brain is too muddled-up to recall those bits of information. I am definitely not smarter than a fifth grader.

I started to think about what could hide in those clouds. I looked long and hard at each cloud until I finally spotted another airplane flying in the other direction. White smoke was shooting out from behind it, creating a long white line in its trail. I think it was another Lion Air airplane because it had a splash of red near its tail. Or maybe it was an Air Asia airplane. I was rather disappointed that it wasn’t a UFO. That would have been so cool.

I remembered all the stories about UFO sightings by passengers of an airplane. I wonder what they saw. How did the UFO look like when people saw it from high up in the air? How did they move? How did they disappear?

My mind shifted to the tales of alien abductions that took place on an airplane. Passengers were reported to have gone missing for 1-2 hours. Then they suddenly reappeared, back in their own seats. Some of them reported that they were abducted by aliens. Others couldn’t remember where they had been. I started wishing that an alien UFO would appear and abduct me. That would be so exciting. But of course, I’d have to beg them to let me keep my memory so I could keep the knowledge of what they looked like, what the ship was like, and the technology they used. Maybe they’d even answer my questions about all the things I’m dying to know about the universe.

How big is the universe, really?

What is on the edge of the universe?

What is it like to travel inside a wormhole?

What other dimensions are there?

Are there other earths just like ours? Are there other planets with life on it?

What would it really take to warp time and move through space with ease?

So many questions. I can imagine that many more will come after answers are told.

Maybe they would let me carry the answers to a more sustainable life on earth: self-sustaining energy sources, greener advanced technology, the cure to cancer and many other diseases…

But maybe some answers are meant to be unknown until we find it out by ourselves. Who knows how long that would take, though? I might be gone already.

I really hope they abduct me before I die.

Almost an hour later, the head stewardess announced that we would be landing shortly and we have to fasten our seat belts. The typical sassy and sugar-coated female voice knocked me back to earth, away from my daydreams. I could hear the teasing voice in my head: Earth to Naya, Earth to Naya... Time to go home.

 

I guess earth still needs me. ;p