Thirty hours ago
Thirty hours ago I hopped on a late-night flight from New York heading to Los Angeles. After boarding I saw that I had an entire row to myself. Take off passed without incident, and soon I was stretched out for a nap across the row.
I slept for a few hours, I don’t know how long, but I woke up to some severe turbulence. It’s possible that the lights in the cabin went out for a moment, but I was so disoriented that it’s hard to say.
I checked my phone to see that it was 4:03 AM, which I figured gave me about an hour until we landed. When I looked out my window, I was shocked to see nothing but wide open ocean. My jaw dropped; there’s obviously no ocean between New York and Los Angeles.
I hit the button to call the flight attendant and spent the next few minutes wracking my brain for a lake that could’ve been possibly been big enough to explain what I was seeing. I jumped when the attendant flipped off the light. She was grinning from ear to ear, and tears were pouring down her cheeks.
“How can I help you sir?” she asked.
“I froze for a moment at her reaction before deciding to just ask my question. “Where are we? Why does it look like we’re flying over an ocean?”
She wiped her cheeks to clear the tears, still grinning wildly. “Sir, we’ll be landing in about an hour.”
“I, uh, OK, thank you,” I said.
After she left I checked the clock on my phone again. 4:03 AM blinked back at me.
