9:31 a.m. - 2005-08-07
free fall
The Spanish kid next to me is worrying, rosary-style, some kinda St. Christopher bracelet-thingy. Turning it over and over in his fat soft hands and praying under his breath. And even though we aren't beset by turbulence and the captain has said nothing that might indicate trouble, even though the moon shines on fair skies beyond our little ovoid windows...even though we've already survived an animated feature co-starring the voice of Robin Williams (a true hazard of modern flight), I get where he's coming from. 'Cause we've been aloft for five hours, and inevitably, on a flight that long, your faith in technology (or your xanex) wears off and your thoughts embrace all sorts of morbid possibilities. I'd actually just been fantasizing along the same fatalistic lines as my aisle-mate. The scenario I'd constructed involved a sudden explosion, whereupon I was forcibly deplaned. "How amazing", I thought, "must the naked view from this altitude be? Surely shock would soften the blow of my impending demise and afford me a final minute's appreciation from this lofty vantage?" I imagined my arm, liberated from my torso by the explosion, hurtling earthward only a few yards east of the rest of me. Certainly this was farther away than was preferable, but given the vast (albeit closing) distance between my self and the (soon-to-be-not-so) sleepy suburbs below, was it really worth sweating? I lean back in my seat, feeling relaxed and hoping only to finish the in-flight magazine's crossword before the glorious fireball takes us all. Then it hits me, the same hitch that undermines all my death-reconciliation fantasies. My mom -- she's gonna be bummed. Crying and stuff. And then looking in the casket and wondering like, where was my arm and then probably crying some more. Plus my girl, who was waiting for me at the airport -- bummed totally also. Having to wear my stupid picture in some tragic heart locket forever. Grf. Suddenly it becomes very important to me that we land safely, that all that fat hand-rubbing and Spanish muttering softens the heart of old St. Christopher and I get to sleep alive at home tonight.
Love, I realize, is a dirty trick life plays to make itself seem desirable.
