Window Seat Over the Bermuda Triangle by Cecilia Kennedy
“The Bermuda Triangle,” the pilot announces, laughter in his voice, “used to be a thing of legendary dark tales…ships and planes disappearing…all stories, debunked.” He tells us to relax and enjoy the flight over the infamous stretch of the Atlantic, with Miami, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico bordering the corners. He says he hasn’t lost a plane yet.
*****The clouds at night are wispy gray, undulating with waves that change form. They look like terrifying sea monsters and less menacing turtles, shifting and moving and swirling. I settle into sleepiness. The two seats on my left happen to be empty, so I lean my head over to the side, seatbelt still on. My eyes rest on the filmy, smoky clouds, while my mind turns the shapes over into human faces that laugh and grimace and growl. A strange music enters the cabin, and at first, I think it’s just someone else’s ear buds, a movie playing loudly, but the sound seems to have entered me, resonating from inside, a clattering of static followed by a pulsating beat at once melodic and jarring. It empties me of all other thoughts, except the sound, and the cloud faces outside, which are no longer faces, but tall forms like trees becoming denser and more human-like and detailed.
The very heart inside my chest pounds with the beat of the music—the sound—and I can only follow the shapes with my eyes: a ship’s captain floats by, gray, pale, forlorn—and a pilot in a vintage flight suit, an airplane seat protruding through his middle. I close my eyes to rid myself of the terrible images, but just like the music—the sound that’s entered me—the images follow, and when I open my eyes, the pilot I’ve just seen is standing at the front of the plane, wisps of his middle invisible, the damaged airplane seat torn and blooded, stuck in his chest.
He lumbers down the aisle with a terrifying grin and empty, shadowy eyes that fixate on me. When he gets to my row, he pushes the airplane seat that’s been wedged inside his middle, all the way down, through his body. Fleshy tissues and innards trail. He places that seat over the empty one directly to my left and sits next to me. The music in my head blares the entire time. His hideous mouth turns into a wicked smile, exposing jagged teeth. He mouths the words, “Get lost.” As if he wanted me to move, so he could have my window seat.
*****The plane jolts into a bout of turbulence, and I give into the music, the slow beat in my head, as a bolt of lightning slices past my window, and my chair trembles, the seatbelt giving way.
Cecilia Kennedy (she/her) taught English and Spanish in Ohio for 20 years before moving to Washington state. Since 2017, she has published stories in international literary publications. Her short-story collections include The Places We Haunt (Baxter House Editions) and Twenty-Four-Hour-Shift: Dark tales from on and off the Clock (DarkWinter Press).
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