Kristine Fontanilla
In the Unlikely Event of a Crash
Because you do not want to die as a puzzle piece among turbine engines and panicked
passengers, you will want to take a look at the airline’s safety manual in front of you as you
prepare for lift-off. Make sure to repeatedly review the 4 x 9 plastic card covered in oily
fingerprints and cookie crumbs because although you are only twelve, there will be many
situations where you are forced to live in a state of independence. The best thing you can
do for yourself, as you fly over several bodies of water, is to at least feel prepared for the
unknown. Keep feeling until you convince yourself that you are prepared and can survive a
39,000-foot drop from the sky by reading the following instructions.
Please make sure your seat belt is buckled. Make sure the people around you have their
seat belt buckled as well. Unfortunately, you’re not sitting next to the window so you
cannot distract yourself from the thirty-something Caucasian man unknowingly exposing
his derriere each time he gets up to stretch. You hate this, the way he rises above seated
passengers to spread his arms and puff his chest out like a pigeon. You hate the attention he
seems to call upon himself while everyone else is sitting down.
It is better to stay low and quiet. You always say that to yourself. That way, no one can
target you, no one can try and figure you out. If you brought attention on to yourself, others
will wonder about you, the small, wide-eyed Asian girl travelling by herself. You wonder
about their thoughts: Perhaps her parents are divorced, and she’s travelling to see one of
them. Perhaps she is an orphan. Perhaps she is lost and somehow passed through security and
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boarded on to this airplane. Or maybe her parents are just fine, along with her brother. Maybe
she is lonely and scared on this red-eye flight where she was forced to fly alone. But no, of
course they will not think that. You are independent, you are brave. You’re not twelve
anymore, you are now older. You’re a big girl.
If oxygen masks release above you, make sure to put yours on before helping others.
You need to take care of yourself because you will not always have someone to take care of
you. But that’s already known. You’ve been taking care of yourself for as long as you can
remember. It’s not that your parents weren’t helpful. In fact, they tried to help you all the
time, even when they were both away on their work trips. You just always convinced
yourself that you needed to do everything on your own. Even when your parents came back
home trying to make up for lost time. “No, Mom. I’ll pick out my clothes for school, I’ll make
my own breakfast, I’ll make dinner for the family,” you would say. Then she would upset
you by saying, “But you’re only a child!” You are going to be much older when you learn
that helping yourself sometimes means helping others.
But what were you trying to do?
If you are seated next to an emergency exit, please review your responsibilities. If
you’re unable, or simply prefer not to perform these tasks, please inform a flight
attendant immediately because there seems to be a misunderstanding between your
responsibilities and your mother’s. You continuously forget your own duties as a child:
simply filling a home. The 1950’s home economics book you found in your mother’s old
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boxes even reminds you: “Take a few minutes to wash the children’s hands and faces (if
they are small), comb their hair, and if necessary, change their clothes. They are little
treasures and their father would like to see them playing the part.” So try not to look so
tough as you pack for boarding school at sixteen, where the turquoise waters of the
Mediterranean Sea separate you from your parents and brother. Let your mother help you
pack, your father carry your boxes, and your brother sit on your bed as you gather your
things before you catch your flight.
Your mobile phone and/or other electrical devices should be turned off because it
can interfere with the aircraft’s signals so when your parents call you again at boarding
school to ask how you are doing, end the phone call as soon as you can. Hopefully it won’t be too
difficult for you in the future, especially when your mother starts describing your favorite homecooked meal she just made for your dad and brother: cheesy, baked macaroni topped with that
golden crust you love. Try not to imagine the chewiness from the tiny bits of your favorite honey
ham that she likes to mix in for you and only you. Hang up immediately before you start
envisioning your family together at the dinner table set for three and not four. Do it before your
chest starts to feel tight and the rhythm of your breath feels different.
But it’s too late. Your usual breath-in, breath-out has turned into one deep breath in, locking the
air inside of your throat to prevent you from crying.
Your chest puffs out like a balloon now, like the man who sat next to you on that plane as he
stretched. Go ahead, continue to convince yourself you are strong and can survive on your own.
Without your family. Go ahead and expand that chest like a proud man.
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“But you’re only a child! You are my child and will always be my child when you have grown into
a beautiful woman with children of your own,” your mother would say to you. But you would
never listen past the first sentence because you thought you had to show courage and a sense of
independence since you were left on your own a lot. It was too much bravery and too much
courage that finally destroyed your defense mechanism. But didn’t you know that all balloons
pop if they get too much air?
Before landing, please adjust your seats to its normal position. Notice how straight
your spine is as you sit up from your seat. It’s like you’re mimicking your mother’s and the
posture she showed as she taught you your first piano lesson. The way you look around the
walking aisle with curiosity and notice small details is the same way your father looks at you
when you are not looking at him. The way you tap your fingers on the armrests anxiously
waiting for your plane to descend right now is the same kind of finger tapping your brother
would do as you would sing with the radio in his cherry Rav-4. Notice these things happening
around you while they are still around. Pay close attention now: the many times you will have to
fly alone will occur only because your family is already at the airport waiting for you to finally
come home.
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