Flying Home from Tamworth

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Stephen Whiteside
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Flying Home from Tamworth

Post by Stephen Whiteside » Thu Jan 26, 2012 6:00 am

Flying Home from Tamworth

© Stephen Whiteside 25.01.2012

I’d seen so many of these airline safety demonstrations recently that I’d become quite keen to try the life-jackets. They were different to the ones I was used to from sailing, and I wanted to make a comparison. Besides, they had all these extra gadgets - the special pipe to blow extra air in, the whistle, and so forth. They looked really cool.

Sadly, this flight was failing to head over water once again, so even if we did crash, I’d be unable to test the lifejacket. Imagine, then, my disappointment on the way back from Tamworth to Sydney when the crew announced we were crashing. What a waste! I still wasn’t going to get to try out the snazzy life-jacket!

Well, things turned out a bit better than I might have hoped - in some ways, at least. The plane actually crashed in a dam in a paddock - quite a big one, too. The fuselage sort of concertinaed and split open all in one neat move. I was seated right at the back of the plane, so I landed on a great pile of bodies, most of which seemed to be dead.

Unfortunately, the plane seemed to have blasted most of the water out of the dam when it crashed, but I was determined to try to grab this chance to test my life-jacket nonetheless. I found I didn’t seem to be able to move my legs any more, but I dragged myself over to the dam with my arms, and pulled myself into the middle. There still wasn’t enough water in it to really float, but I blew a bit of extra air in anyway just on principle.

I became distracted, though, by the sound of whistles. There were quite a few survivors like myself, and a number of them had started blowing their whistles. I don’t know why, really. It was not as though we were lost or anything, and there didn’t seem to be much chance of anybody coming to our assistance for quite some time, either, but the whistles made a nice sound, and I guess they were sort of reassuring.

I noticed that the whistles didn’t all make the same noise. Some were higher, others lower; some had a thin, reedy quality, and others were much more rich and rounded. It was quite an interesting chorus, and I decided to join it.


It was about then that the aeroplane exploded, so here we all are up in heaven. St. Peter offered me a lute at the pearly gate, but I said I’d just stick with my whistle, if it was all the same to him. He just shrugged his shoulders. It didn’t seem to worry him either way.
Stephen Whiteside, Australian Poet and Writer
http://www.stephenwhiteside.com.au

r.magnay
Posts: 1402
Joined: Sun Oct 31, 2010 1:41 pm
Location: Port Lincoln SA

Re: Flying Home from Tamworth

Post by r.magnay » Thu Jan 26, 2012 6:01 pm

.....I think you should give someone else the key to the drug cabinet Stephen...... :roll:
Ross

croc

Re: Flying Home from Tamworth

Post by croc » Thu Jan 26, 2012 8:56 pm

:lol:

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