The plane was supposed to crash. I was a passenger on that plane, and I decided that it was not going to. So the extreme turbulence ended and the pilot was able to regain control.
I knew it was a dream. No other way would I be holding someone else’s baby otherwise. My fellow passengers stopped panicking and praised the pilot. The pilot quietly accepted the words and thanked “whatever power is watching”.
The baby was the only one that saw me smile.
Then suddenly! An engine exploded! Oh no, we’re going to crash!
As the plane tilted to the right, I felt out the dream sequence. There was nothing leading up to the sudden failure, even accounting for dream logic. Only a strange taste under my tongue, like I had been sucking on a six-penny nail.
Someone is bending the dream.
I’m not the only Traveler on board.
The pilot shut down the corresponding engine on the left wing, balancing out the thrust from the remaining engines. The plane levelled off. He announced we were going to be making an unscheduled landing at an approaching airport. People started to panic. The baby clung to me and whimpered.
The pilot was doing what pilots do best, perform like a badass under pressure. I wrapped my mind around the structure of the plane and held it intact. No spontaneous breakups on my watch. (But that relationship argument back in row 14 sounded doomed from the start.) I felt something reach for the parts of a plane that are more likely to develop cracks from metal fatigue. That something touched me instead.
The copilot suddenly let loose a string of expletives about “that fucking bitch interfering”, and I knew then who the other Traveler was.
I just didn’t know why.
The plane landed safely in some obscure town in an obscure part of the Midwest somewhere between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River. We never disembarked, however. An insurance agent from the airline immediately came onboard. He went straight to the copilot and started giving him a whole lot of shitte about failed expectations and inability to produce results. The agent did not feel like another Traveler, but if he was not trying to bend the dream, he would not stand out. I still had my physical hands full with the baby and my mental hands holding the plane together, just in case.
“THAT BITCH IS HERE! I was supposed to have [this dream] all to myself!”
“So you’re saying you can only perform your skills when held in a theoretical environment.”
“A dream is a theoretical environment.”
“No, a dream is an intersection of wills, beliefs, fears, and hopes. You will never be guaranteed a clean-room for your work. You had one job, and only one person interfering, and you couldn’t manage even that. This will be reported to my superiors, and you will be informed of their decision about your continued employment at a later date.”
The insurance agent left the cockpit and scanned the passenger area. The baby chose that moment to start jumping in my lap. I realized the baby had placed himself in a way to block the agent from seeing my face, and more importantly, my eyes.
Why you little shit.
You Traveler.
The baby laughed with naked glee as the agent departed entirely. Another agent came on board. Turned out nearly all the passengers had travel insurance. He set up his payout table in the cockpit and was seeing passengers one by one to accept their claims.
The relationship in row 14 completely fell apart as someone found pictures that someone else was supposed to delete from their camera. The baby settled down, leaned against me, and began sucking his thumb contentedly.
As far as the baby was concerned, it was happy ever after.
“So. Did I do my job?”
The baby grunted and smiled.
“Am I still needed?”
The baby shook his head.
“You owe me.”
The baby paused sucking his thumb, then nodded and grunted before giggling.
“Fine, you lil asshole. Good travels, then.”
The baby sat up and waved a farewell to me. I woke up cleanly.