Words On a Plane by Amy Byrne

   ‘Papa,….’ Oscar held a finger up to pause his sixteen year old daughter from saying anymore. He made a show of looking at his watch and looking out the window Liev was sitting beside. Leaning across her to make the point of him assessing something.

   ‘Ach, papa!’ The girl pleaded, knowing there were only clouds out there. ‘Stoppe.’

   Her father started to count on his fingers.

   ‘Ach papa, vil du venlist stoppe far!’ The girl begged her father.

   ‘No I will not stop.’ He laughed back at her. ‘It’s English time now.’

   He’d sat back satisfied in his seat as he said this.

   ‘Ikke til minuttet!’ She begged.

   ‘Yes this minute.’ He repeated in English. ‘We agreed, didn’t we? Danish one half, English on the other?’

   ‘It’s confusing.’ Liev declared in seamless English.

   ‘And there we go.’ Oscar smiled proudly.

   Through the gap in the seats in front of him, he eyed his youngest daughter. She was yet to speak since the plane took off. He worried a little about her. Since this, what he’d thought was a game, she rarely spoke once the plane took off. The last few times they made this trip, she wouldn’t speak till they got to the house.

   ‘It’s an hours flight, papa!’

   ‘An hour and ten minutes.’ He mother corrected her from the seats in front of her.

   ‘Do you time it or something?’ Liev asked her father.

   From underneath his shirt cuff, Oscar looked at his watch before showing its face to his daughter. It was an expensive watch, made out of white gold and wood. On its face was a second little face with an extra two hands. They’d frozen in time.

   ‘Ach, papa.’ Liev recognised it from all the time she spent trying to understand how it worked. It had no numbers, yet it told the time down to the millisecond.

   In thirty two minutes, they’d be landing in London. They spent most of the year there, since Oscars career took off and needed his talents between Copenhagen, London and New York. It also meant new schools in a different country and in a different language. They’d made a family pact they speech Danish in Denmark and English in England.

   It had been Oscar who had suggested they bring it to the airspace too, to make it more fun.

Amy Byrne is from Ireland. She enjoys writing short stories and flash fiction. Some of which have expanded to fictional novellas and novels due to her imagination not stopping. She has been part of a writers group for ten years which has been a great help. 

Photo by Westwind Air Service on Unsplash

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