“Mommy, look at the funny man!”
“Shh! It’s not nice to point, dear.”
Sean turned toward the window which contained his green, scrunched-up reflection. The swirling clusters in the background twisted the knot in his stomach. It wasn’t the need to puke that made him clench his fists but rather the smug grin on the child’s face behind him.
He closed his eyes. Counted to ten. Opened.
A billion stars flickered back. On, off. On, off. But the reflections were gone.
Beep! Beep! . . . Beep! Beep!
Sean stifled his watch and gawked around. The laughing heads of passengers whirled around him. When his eyes twitched upon a warped door in the back, he made a distorted noise with his throat, stood, and slipped into the aisle. “E-e-excuse me, m-ma’am. Thank you.”
The door to the lavatory swung back and forth. He stumbled in and shut it behind him.
He dug into his pocket and shook a tiny orange bottle. A lone pill rattled inside. He unscrewed the white cap and swallowed his third dose for the day.
We’d better get there soon, he thought as he stowed the bottle.
When Sean looked up, the lidless eye of the black universe gaped back at him.
He closed his own eyes. Counted to ten. Opened.
Only a green reflection peered through the bathroom mirror. At least it hadn’t gone far.
Knock! Knock!
“Just a minute!” Sean said before he buried his head in the sink.
Knock! Knock!
“Almost done!” He mangled his face with a rag.
Knock! Knock!
“All done!” He twisted the handle and pulled. No one was there.
Finding his seat—“E-e-excuse me, m-ma’am. Thank you.”—Sean leaned back, twiddled his thumbs, and closed his eyes.
“What was that, Mommy?”
“It was nothing, dear.”
“But it looked like a spaceship!”
Sean’s eyes rolled open. They rotated to the window. Dizzy colors of light streaked across the glass canvas. He glanced at the seats beside him. The child had its head down, strangling a video game in its greedy fingers while the mother gazed into a lopsided book.
He leaned back again and closed his eyes.
WARNING! SHUTTLE IS UNDER ATTACK.
Sean twitched. But kept his eyes shut.
WARNING! SHUTTLE IS BEING BOARDED.
“N-not falling for it,” he mumbled.
WARNING! SHUTTLE IS—
He gripped his ears and squeezed so everything outside his head was garbled.
He counted to ten. Twenty. One hundred. To infinity and beyond.
Sean knew he looked like a lunatic. He imagined the child peeking up from its game, a dopey grin stuck to its face, the smothering stares of the passengers as they swiveled in their seats.
Then what felt like a little hole poked against the side of his head. He ignored it.
It poked again. He felt his face screw up in a knot.
Poked a third time. He let go and screamed.
“DON’T TOUCH ME, YOU LITTLE BRAT!”
When Sean finished, his rage choked out like a match underwater. The gun that hovered before his face was not in the hands of a child. And it now poked his forehead.
“Who’s a little brat?” a muffled voice grunted through a black mask. Two more faceless bodies staggered through the aisles, fingers coiled around their guns.
A ball of spit wobbled down Sean’s throat. “Y-y-you’re not real. A-are you?”
The mask glared back. “Let’s find out.”
First, the barrel left Sean’s forehead. Then its butt cracked against his skull.
His legs buckled. Blood wet the glass canvas in uneven splotches.
Sean eyed the skewed reflection of the thug that stood behind him. He pivoted on his feet, his back to the window as he stood to face the thug.
“W-w-what do you w-want?” he asked, lips trembling. When he received no answer, Sean clumsily grabbed at his wallet. “Is it m-money you want? Here—t-take it. Go ahead. Want m-m-my watch? L-look. It’s yours. Just d-d-don’t hurt anyone. Please.”
Even behind the mask, Sean could see the thug’s twisted smile.
“We don’t want your things,” the voice said. “People are worth far more than a handful of dollars and an old watch. Now sit.”
Sean’s heart sank with his legs. No longer deemed a threat, the thug moved on to terrorize more passengers turned currency.
“What’s gonna happen to us, Mommy?”
The child’s mother did not respond.
“Sit down!” the thug’s voice could be heard. “I don’t want a single person on their feet. We won’t hesitate to kill you.”
Sean frowned as he fiddled with his seatbelt. Then a thought slurred awake in his mind.
He glanced beside him. They were sitting. And they wore seatbelts. So did the people across the aisle. So did everyone except three armed hijackers.
Sean couldn’t clutch the lever any faster. The emergency exit popped open, and the air was sucked out in a woozy, hollow whirlwind. One by one, a blur of screaming darkness whirred over his head and into the void. With a fitful groan, he shut the hatch and squinted into the glass. Three dots were added to the canvas.
When he surveyed the shuttle, the hijackers were gone, and the passengers stared blankly. Then they cheered.
“You saved us!”
“You’re a hero!”
“Mommy, look at the brave man!”
Sean leaned back in his seat, kept his eyes open, and smiled. “A hero,” he whispered.
It was several hours before the flight was over. When the shuttle docked at the station, the captain and the crew gave Sean the honor of stepping off first. Passengers and flight attendants grinned and gave jumbled waves as he tottered by.
“Sean!” a voice called from the bottom of the ramp. A man greeted him with an orange bottle of pills. “Well? How was the flight?”
“Doc! You w-wouldn’t believe it! We were b-b-boarded by pirates, and I fought them off all on m-m-my own. E-Everyone thinks I’m a b-bloody hero!”
The doctor gazed past him and into the computer-operated shuttle. Then he smiled. “Why, of course you are! Here, let me help you with your things, Sean. It’s the least I can do for the man who saved all these wonderful people from those nasty, wicked pirates!” He held his smile until Sean was marching strong and tall ahead of him. The doctor then sighed and muttered. “Should I even tell him he was the only one on board?”
This story was a writing exercise based on the following prompt: After being diagnosed with space madness, the intercom announces that the shuttle you’re on has been hijacked.
