"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. This is your captain speaking."
The plane cruises over the South China Sea. The endless expanses of sky and sea are of the exact same shade of brilliant blue, and the clouds, patches of sun-kissed cotton candy, greet the rising sun as if they were a congregation of angels. And maybe they are. These clouds. Maybe they are angels watching over the land, and this is how we perceive their existence.
"This is your captain speaking."
How often do I hear this, without really paying attention? I never register the names of the flight crew, not even the good-looking ones as they make their rounds along the aisle, serving food and beverages and making sure the flight is as comfortable as possible for everyone on-board.
I'm sitting beside the window, the kind of seat I'm always willing to pay extra for whenever I book a flight ticket. I'm watching the sky and the sea and the sun-kissed clouds. Earlier I requested for a pillow for the little girl sitting beside me. I don't engage in small talk with her or her mother. Or maybe her grandmother, who has aged gracefully. I don't even ask for their names, though they remind me of my mother and my niece, those two who share an inseparable bond only unquestioning love can forge. In front of me, a man is snapping pictures of his teenage son. He's holding his dSLR wrong. He's even using the built-in flash. Amateur.
The plane sings a constant hum, though I'm sure outside it's roaring in defiance. A human-made bird of metal dares to take flight, to traverse across mountains and oceans to reach lands half a world away in a matter of hours.
"This is your captain speaking."
It's almost two weeks since the disappearance of flight MH370, bound from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. In the almost-two-weeks, the entire nation has moved from shocked disbelief to rallying people to pray for the safety of the 239 people on-board to craking jokes about our efforts to search for the plane that include employing shamans, and officials who appear to hide more than they are willing to share, and to conspiracy theories cropping up faster than malignant cancer cells do.
A baby is crying somewhere in front of me, and I can see heads turning, discomfited by the noise. I can only imagine the parents cycling between trying to calm the baby and stealing apologetic glances at other passengers. I have my noise-canceling headphones on, so the cries are muted. I may not come across the child again, or the parents, or the other passengers, or even the flight crew.
After the initial flurry of show of solidarity and prayers offered to God (and other deities) via Facebook status updates and Twitter and hashtags, things have noticeably slowed down. In my head, an army of angels are sitting in front of rows upon rows of computer screens, taking down all the typed prayers. Maybe the hashtags make things easier for them to monitor those prayers. Things sure have changed since the days of prayers whispered in the reverent hush of mosques and churches and temples.
The hashtags may have slowed down, but the conspiracy theories are only picking up steam. So are the jokes and parodies. And bomoh mobile apps. In a little less than two weeks, it is evident that the rest of the world is moving on. Their own lives are more interesting. It's back to hashtags like #foodporn and #selfie and #holiday. Maybe more than half the angels assigned to monitoring the internet are reassigned back to their original tasks.
A woman accompanying her son to the toilet stops to chat with another woman sitting behind me. They know each other. They exchange names of mutual friends, and promise to catch up back home. Or something like that. I don't really care. I'm writing this.
First the speculations revolved around the two passengers using stolen passports. Then it was hijacking by people of countries much more powerful than ours. Now it's the pilot who's under scrutiny. For some reason, his unyielding support toward a politician is emphasized. Maybe it's because his support is for a prominent opposing party, and not the ruling one. And his home-built flight simulation, first mentioned to show how dedicated he is to his work, now an object of further speculation, what with the wiped-out data.
I don't really pay attention to speculations and newspaper articles. In my head, I visualize a plane bigger than the one I'm in, with over 200 passengers on-board, flying over a pitch-black ocean, under an even darker sky but with silent starlight forming constellations. Maybe one of the passengers were looking out the window, figuring out the configurations of starlight that looked familiar but somehow different than those seen from outside the window of his or her home. I imagine a colicky baby crying, inconsolable, and the parents darting apologetic glances to everyone around them. Or maybe both the babies in the plane were sleeping in their parent's arms when all communications from the plane stopped.
I can only imagine, based on fiction and movies about airplane disasters, what went on when the blip of the flight disappeared from radars. I can only imagine the abject terror that gripped those on-board, the frantic prayers and the regrets and the anger and the love and the resignation. I don't know any of the passengers or flight crew. I don't eve know their names. I can only imagine the fear that overrode everything else. The absolute certainty that you are about to meet the Maker, but you don't want to. Not now. Not yet. I've lived through that same fear, though for me, I was ready to let go of everything.
I can only imagine. I can only speculate.
Perhaps I am no better than the conspiracy theorists and opportunists, after all.
We may have moved on, and the hashtags may have changed back to normal, but the lives of the families of the missing persons are forever changed. They are still holding on to that frail hope that gets ever smaller with each passing day. I can only imagine how hard it is for them, the fear of not knowing the fate of the missing people.
Missing people.
That's what we're forgetting. In the comfort of our offices and homes and restaurants, we speculate and crack jokes about how backwater our country is in handling this crisis. We share photos of parodies of bomohs (who were actually doing something, though using highly questionable practices) and apps that make light of the situation. We chat about corrupt politicians and conspiracy theories. We conveniently forget about the 239 people on-board that flight, because we don't know them at a personal level. Their lives don't really matter to us because despite the crisis, our lives are not affected. We can still Instagram delicious-looking food in restaurants and tag #foodporn and wait for strangers to click 'Like'.
When a crisis occurs, our first instinct is to find something or someone to blame. Let's face it. It terrifies us when something bad occurs and we cannot explain it. It means that the same can happen to us and that life is beyond our control and comprehension. It means that life is much larger than you and me and we have no say about it. Hence, the urge to villify someone. If the passport thiefs were terrorists, then it makes sense. If the pilot deliberately hijacked the plane, then it makes sense. If there was a technical error depriving everyone of oxygen at such a high altitude then it makes sense.
In order to make sense, in order to feel that much safer when we book a flight ticket, we come up with all these theories. We start scrutinizing everyone, from the flight company to every passenger. Compassion turns to morbid interest. We deconstruct people and make them less human. Even a pilot's political affiliation comes into question. Even a co-pilot's social activities become his undoing.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking."
How many times do we hear this and feel reassured by it? How many times do we trust our lives in that stranger in a sharp uniform and a distinct cap? How many times do we trust our lives in that gargantuan metal construct that seems impossible to take flight just by looking at it?
Our lives may have moved on, but for the families of the people on-board MH370, life is at a standstill. So please, find it in your heart to respect that, to respect them, and may we offer silent prayers in our own hallowed spaces even though the hashtags have slowed down to a trickle.
May angels keep them safe, no matter where they are.
May angels lead them home, no matter where that home is.
Al-Fatihah.
Thank you for your blogpost. It's one of the more thoughtful and considerate things I've read concerning the flight, especially in this late stage when there's just speculation and repetition.
I have a distant relative, a girl I went to school with, whose mum, aunt and two younger sisters are on board that plane. I think about how that family is currently halved, and may remain that way, and how I don't know how one mourns when there may be nothing to bury.
It's news to everyone else, but it's a family to me.
Again, thank you for your blogpost. Al-Fatihah.
Posted by: Alishairish | Sunday, March 23, 2014 at 04:10 AM