Flight Paths: a networked novel

Kate Pullinger gave a visiting lecture to 2nd year Media Studies undergrads at DMU in March 2010.  One student contributed her ideas about where the story might go next, after viewing the five story fragments on the project homepage:

All the story that happens from Ch 4 onwards should turn out to be a dream...  The woman faints after he lands on the car, and dreams this... wakes up in hospital to find out he died... Flashbacks of his life.

i ived in istanbul for a short time and suddenly began having severe panic attacks once i arrived. i had never previously experienced any sort of stress, really, and was always the laid-back type. i have always been confident and sure of myself it was absolutely crazy to me that i would have these dreadful feelings and fears and physical pandemonium; it was absurd. but one day after a late night of drinking i rushed to class the next morning without any breakfast/something to drink. no water, either, though i had packed about to a half-a-bottle in my bag. so it's my first time in this class and i'm an all-american boy--the only one in the university--but i'm a jew, too, and so all the turks constantly mistook me for their own. and this university is supposedly an english-speaking institution, but half the classes i signed up for were in turkish, of which i knew very little--enough to get around, but no knowledge of the academic sort. i walk in and take my seat. to them i'm just another student but i have this little secret in my head that, "yes, folks, i am a foreigner here." class begins and, what do ya know, it's in turkish again. damnit, i think to myself, this is ridiculous, i'm never going to be able to find some classes to take. whatever, i need to split. previously, i had raised my hand and asked in perfect, "i'm sorry, but i was under the impression that this lesson was to be taught in english. was i mistaken?" all the heads would suddenly swivel with a sort of surprising violence..."who the hell said that?" but this time, for some stupid, stupid, silly little reason i didn't do that. i would wait for an escape, a pause, and then i would leave. but it wasn't coming and suddenly i realized that it was rather warm in the room. okay, okay so its a bit warm. springtime in istanbul is far colder than one would imagine, with sorrowful rain when the temperature hovers just above freezing; and these turks like the sun and the warmth and so in each and every indoor area the heat is always cranked. and i'm noticing that right now. man it's hot. but i'm not sweating. and then i realize that i'm really thirsty, dehydrated thirsty. and then like a mysterious thought that that is sitting just behind your consciousness like a veiled painting and you know it's there but you don't know what it is, well, it unveiled itself and it was rather simple: what if i were to pass out right now? nothing crazy or even irrational about it. even now it is such a obvious and minuscule premonition. nevertheless. my vision starts to blur. i can feel my hands shaking a little bit. worse is that my head is fully functioning--functioning too well, actually. i am acutely aware of everything going on around me. every little conversation, every turkish syllable that i can't understand, every pretty girl in the classroom. all of it at once swirling in my head, but i am absorbing all of it, computing it, analyzing it, recording it. then the weight of my body vanished. poof. all that was there was my head. but my head knew that my body was gone and did not appreciate it. in fact it began to drive my head mad as it absorbed and computed and analyzed and recorded that, too. and then i think, "oh, no, the turkish, i can't speak the turkish and if i'm out then what-the-hell will happen then, how will i explain myself?" but that becomes secondary because my vision is seedier and i am seeing spots-----the girl next to me asks me a question about the course, i can kind of understand it but i'm so bugged out right now i don't even want to think about it and like a robot i recite one of the lines i learned from my fake rosetta-stone program, "Sorry, I'm an American, I couldn't understand that;" oh the shame but she just smiles and whispers in turkish beneath the monotony of the teacher, "oh, but it appears you speak it very," shit think oh i got it, "yes, but turkish at the university i can't understand"-----what a breath and a relief as she smiles contently and returns her attention back to the teacher and for that short conversation all was well and to be honest i don't remember if i felt any of that loathsome fear or not. either way the second she turned back i look at my empty water bottle and remember that i am still on the cusp of losing it and dropping dead in the middle of class. i want to simply jog out the room but god-knows-why i'm afraid of making a scene or not being able to stand up and hitting the deck right then. heart rate up up up cold sweat vision going....i keep wetting my tongue to keep the moisture there but it stays for less and less each time and i know that's going, too. i try to distract myself by trying to understand the professor but its no use every word means heat or faint or water or something of that nature and holding on and on and on until finally, it's only been 40 minutes, the end of class comes.

i stayed seated for 10 more seconds. waited until everybody filed out and then stood up. i could stand. i was standing. it didnt feel like my legs were there but i could clearly see that, yes, i was standing. and then i sprinted to the bathroom. i stuck my burning head under the faucet and realized how cold my hands were how cold everything was but i am so warm i am not sweating just cooking. i drank the apparently inedible tap water, i did not care, drank half a gallon of it, panting. and then i felt a little better. i walked outside and nervously smoked a cigarette. (brilliant idea.)i thought i felt better. i walked back to my flat and made myself a bowl of pasta.

that would seem to be the end of it, but it wasn't. any time i was in any public place, any place with any trace of heat, any trace of people not knowing me, not knowing that i could faint any gawdamn moment--there was always that possibility--the same feeling would occur. like a piece of livestock in a hot, crowded bus, every time i thought that was the time, yes, yes, this is it, i would tell myself, that i would finally run out of luck and have a sudden public nap.

and though time after time afterward, on every bus and classroom and train and shop that had any trace of that possibility--just the ridiculous notion that it could COULD happen--i would be on the edge, looking over, trying so very hard not to slip and never actually slipping and i don't know why because every time it was right there and i could just about feel it but i kept my eyes open and my mind moving and somehow i never dropped. i just don't understand how. it was undeniably real, and only because of its possibility.

anyways, that feeling of teetering over is what your brought to my mind.

'Flight Paths' is a networked novel, created on and through the internet, open to contributions from anyone, anywhere.  Created and curated by Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph, 'Flight Paths' uses stories, texts, videos, photos, sounds, and animations to tell the story of Yacub, the man who fell from the sky, and Harriet, the woman who witnesses his fall.  It's a tale of refugees and migrants, consumers and cities, the desperate journey of one man and the bored isolation of one woman.

Help us fill the gaps and join the dots by contributing to 'Flight Paths'.