**The Journey Home**
Edward fastened his seatbelt and absently adjusted the seatback. He flew oftentoo often, if he was honest. Once a month, sometimes more: conferences, meetings, short business trips that left his head spinning worse than cheap whisky. This time was especially mundanetwo days of negotiations, signatures, a dinner with partnersand then back to London.
The only difference was the destination. The plane wasnt heading to Germany or Edinburgh, but to a small town in the south where he was born and from which hed fled twenty years ago. Hed been back only twice sincefor his fathers funeral, then his mothers. Both times, hed been desperate to return to the noise of city traffic, his projects, to a life too busy for reflection.
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Last night, hed sat in a pub with colleagues, arguing over some presentation. Someone had drunk too much and started singing *Wonderwall* off-key. Funny how that tune had stuck in his head, humming faintly beneath the drone of the engines. He almost smiled.
“Would you like juice or water, sir?” the stewardess asked, leaning over him with a practised smile.
“Water, please.”
She handed him a plastic cup. He nodded. The water was lukewarm, as if left in the sun. But he was thirsty.
The man beside him muttered something, flipping through a magazine.
“Prices are mad, arent they?” he said, glancing up.
“Always have been,” Edward replied. “Theyre selling watches here for the price of a flat.”
Both chuckled. For a moment, it felt easy, almost familiar.
The plane flew smoothly, a gentle sway beneath them. A baby cried somewhere ahead, but the mother quickly soothed it. Someone clicked the overhead light switch repeatedly, chasing the glow. Across the aisle, a girl giggled at her phone screen, its harsh light making her look younger than she was.
Edward turned to the window, expecting at least the faint glow of a village below, the streak of a motorway, a star blinking back. But outside was only a thick, uniform black. A matte film pressed against the glass.
“Dark out there, eh?” his neighbour said, peering over. “Cant see a thing.”
Edward shrugged. “Well its night.”
But something uneasy stirred in his chest. Night breathes. This was emptiness.
He checked his phone. The screen flashedno signal. Of course. He always forgot mid-flight. Still, the habit remained: reaching for the screen, hoping for a message from his son. *At least send an emoji*, he thought, locking it with a wry smile.
“Youve got no signal either?”
“None,” Edward said. “Shouldnt expect it up here.”
“Right,” the man replied, returning to his magazine, fingers tracing glossy ads for coats hed never buy.
The plane wobbled slightlyjust turbulence. But the water in Edwards cup trembled, ripples too perfect, as if tapped by an invisible finger.
From the row behind:
“Are you sure theyll meet us?” a woman asked.
“Of course. They said theyd wait right by the gate,” another replied.
The word *wait* lodged in Edwards skull. He pressed his forehead to the window. Still nothing. No spark, no light. Just black fabric wrapped around the plane.
He thought of his mother. Buried in that old churchyard over a decade now. He remembered standing at her grave in his black overcoat, the strangeness of staring at dirt while her laughter still echoed in his memory. Now, against the window, he almost heard her voice*Eddie*and flinched as if shocked.
“Alright there?” his neighbour asked.
Edward blinked. “Just remembered something.”
“Ah,” the man said. “Well, dont think about the turbulence.”
He tried to read, but the words slipped away. Sentences blurred; his eyes kept drifting back to the dark glass. Blackness. Normal, surely. What else should there be?
His neighbour snorted, flipping a page.
“Six grand for a watch. Could buy a used Mini for that.”
“Mhm,” Edward said, polite but unamused.
From the aisle:
“She said, ‘Wait for us by lunch.”
Then another voice, higher: “Mine said the same. ‘Wait for us by lunch.”
A coincidence, surely. Yet the word *wait* sent a chill through him, like a draught under a door. He stared back at the window.
The black glass reflected his facepale, tired. No clouds, no lights below. Just endless dark, so thick it felt like reaching out would swallow his hand whole.
“Dark out there,” his neighbour repeated. “Cant see a thing.”
“Its night,” Edward said aloud. But inside, the words twisted: *Night is alive. This is dead.*
The stewardess wheeled her cart past.
“Coffee or tea?”
“Tea, thanks. And lemon, if youve got it,” a woman said.
Her friend added, identically: “Tea for me too. With lemon.”
Both spoke in unison, as if rehearsed. Edward frowned. The girl in headphones giggled, mimicking in a singsong: *”With lemon, with lemon”*
His neighbour stopped flipping pages but said nothing.
The plane shuddered. Water trembled in the cup, surface quivering like a drumskin. Edward touched itthe liquid froze, glass-like, for a second. Strange. But fatigue explained everything.
***
Captain Reynolds glanced from the instruments to the windscreen. Nothing. Even on moonless nights, clouds parted sometimes, or stars blurred through. This was a black screenlike the cockpit had been wheeled into a hangar and left unlit.
“Maybe were in cloud,” he said, voice uncertain.
“At this altitude?” the co-pilot replied. “With no turbulence? Radars blank.”
“Solar flare,” Reynolds suggested. “Plasma layers it happens.”
“Then thered be static.”
“There is.” He tapped the silent radio.
He knew he wasnt convincing. This wasnt like any malfunction hed seen in twenty years.
The co-pilot pressed his forehead to the side window.
“Could it be snowfields below? We just cant see them?”
“Snow glows,” Reynolds said. “This is black.”
They checked the instruments again. Course steady. Altitude stable. Fuel normal. Engines perfect. Everything workedexcept the world outside.
“Thing is,” the co-pilot whispered, “if it were storm clouds, Id understand. Or ocean. But this isnt night. Night breathes.”
“Breathes,” Reynolds agreed, staring into the void.
He reached for the mic. Didnt say *all is well*he couldnt.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said flatly. “Were continuing our flight. Navigation systems are temporarily unavailable, but all aircraft systems are operational. The crew has full control.”
He released the button.
Silence hissed in his headset. Outside, the black wall held them, waiting for the fuel to run out.
***
The PA clicked off. A basement-thick silence followed, then crackednot in the instruments, but in the people.
Edwards neighbour snapped his magazine shut, face taut.
“Temporarily unavailable?” he said too loudly. “Are we lost?”
No one answered. Heads turned.
Across the aisle, the girl in the bunny-print jumper stuffed her phone into her bag and crieddry, trembling. A stranger handed her a tissue; she crumpled it in her fist.
Two rows ahead, a man in a tailored suit jabbed the call button.
“Explain no navigation,” he demanded. “I need to reschedule my connection!”
The stewardess murmured reassurances. He waved her off, voice shaking. Fear masked as anger.
The young mother sat rigid, stroking her childs hairtoo fast, as if her touch could keep him alive. Her eyes were dry, alert.
From the back, laughterthin, unending.
Edward watched, a strange calm settling in his chest. Here they were, stripped bare. Some shouted, some wept, some clung to children like lifelines. Masks fell fast. Perhaps this was more honest than talk of watches and coats.
He wondered if his own face looked the same. But the window only reflected darkness.
His neighbour breathed faster now, true terror in each gasp. The suited mans voice rose to a screech. The girl hid her face, whispering *no, no, no*
The baby cried. No one shushed themthe sound was proof the world still existed.
The laughter behind them turned jagged, indistinguishable from sobs.
Edward thought of his father at the kitchen table, spinning car keys. *”A man travelling is always naked.”* Only now did he understand.
***
Reynolds exhaled and nudged the yoke. The plane dipped. The co-pilot watched the instrumentsall zeros. Frozen.
“Are we descending?”
“We should be,” Reynolds said. “Question is, where?”
They waited for
