We all know the expression; “to disappear in thin air,” don’t we? So the question is; How can an aircraft disappear in thin air? How could that Malaysian airliner take that expression so directly? And where the hell is the plane, in the first place? I won’t waste time on this since I do not have time for conspiracy theories. If you can’t tell me what became of that aircraft, keep your informed guesses to yourself. Suddenly, people who are flying over this period need the reassurance of relatives and friends as they board that next plane, ‘so that it does not disappear like the Malaysian one’. Suddenly, people who would not have told you of their flight schedules are now soliciting for your prayers so that they have ‘journey mercies.’ The thing is, what are you bringing with you as a gift for me from that trip to Dubai for which you now want ‘journey mercies’? It’s the reason we have people called “prosperity pastors”. Scratch my back and I scratch yours. On a lighter note, the people who make the Oxford English Dictionary should consider changing the expression, “to disappear in thin air” to something like “to disappear in Malaysian air”. Perhaps this would even be the best way to preserve the memory of a singular event that has left the whole world baffled. This disappearance of a plane in thin air reminds me of when I was still a young boy and with my friends we would debate about what is the best way to die. What I remember is that most of us always ended up choosing a plane crash as the most desirable. According to this school of thought, the ‘good’ thing with perishing in a plane crash is that you are burnt to ash, therefore it is more neat as compared to conventional death which takes an ugly turn shortly after. There was also the whole feel-good thing about air travel. Save for people with a real phobia for flying, the rest of us ordinary folk have at some point idolized the whole idea of flying. It still remains as one of those feats to be attained in life. If you were told to choose between a plane and a taxi moto crash, who would choose the second option? Personally, I would rather be heard to have disappeared or died in a plane crash than to have perished while cowering at the back of a moto. Who wants that? The problem with a taxi motor accident is that you will immediately suspect the rider to have smoked a joint of marijuana before hitting the road. Or you will suspect that he was still wobbly with a pounding headache after downing a carton of Super Gin the previous night.
