I had a lucid dream this morning.
It was 1973 and I was piloting a Pan-Am jumbo en route to Athens with a re fuel and layover in Nice.
Hours into the flight a man breaks through the curtain into the cockpit brandishing a revolver saying, "I need you to take this plane to Lebanon!" And I said, "But sir, we don't have enough fuel to reach Lebanon, we'd be lucky to reach-" *smack* He hits me across the temple with the gun. "Don't lie to me!"
I glance at my co-pilot who looks horrified, and I say, "Do as he says."
We set new vectors into the flight computer navigation system to direct us towards Lebanon. And I'm thinking to myself, we may have to ditch this plane into the Atlantic.
Hours pass as we keep flying with nothing but blue ocean beneath us. When a vibration starts to shake the plane.
"What was that!?" The gunman says.
I carefully look over to the flight engineer, and he says in a stifled voice, "That was engine 4 sir, it just flamed out."
"How much fuel do we have left?"
"Less than... We need."
I carefully reach into my pocket and pull for my pack of cigarettes, and drop them below the control column. I look back and my co-pilot hands me one.
"Thanks."
I throttle down the remaining engines and it starts descending, and all the while I'm thinking I can't believe there's nothing I can do... 700 souls aboard, including this guy with a gun to my head.
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