flight


The captain came over the loud speaker and announced our location, estimated time of arrival, and the weather conditions in Boston. He then went on to tell us that he was turning off the seat belt sign as we were expecting a very smooth flight. No sooner had he made this reassuring announcement and the plane dived and started to shake in violent waves of turbulence. The seat belt light came on immediately and the passengers stared at each other in concern. Before boarding the plane, at the gate, I’d seen a lady who had made every happy moment of my life flash before my eyes such was her beauty and her manner of existence. I now started to think that was my life flashing before my eyes as is said by some to happen shortly before the moment of death. The turbulence persisted to the point where we began our decent into Boston. For some reason, I fear turbulence less when descending because I know that we are closer to landing and turbulence is a normal part of this process as the plane cuts through clouds and so on. Anyone who has ever lived in, or flown into, England knows what it is like to pass through cloud in a plane. However, this was no ordinary decent… the snow that I loved and longed for so much, but which had remained elusive most of winter, was now falling just in time for landing. If you have ever seen Star Wars and recall the scene where the Millennium Falcon enters into light speed travel and the stars turns into solid white stripes you will know what it was that we could see… nothing but white stripes blazing past the windows. For a period of time these stripes were only on the right of the plane and that just didn’t make any sense to me at all. Eventually both sides of the plane were solid white stripes and there was no idea of what altitude we were at nor where we were… it was just an endless descent. I was extremely exhausted from four days in a row of giving two-hour presentations to the senior management of our company in Boston and Miami… I was somewhat emotional and contemplating life in all of its existential emptiness. I thought of the passing of time and of people, I thought of relationships and how they bring so much joy and so much pain and then so often simply fade away only to be replaced by something else. The thought that I was meant to meet someone the next day occurred to me as, BUMP, we hit the ground and seemed to be unsteady, the left wing would lift and then the right, my stomach seemed to turn to cement and my heart leaped into my throat… then we stabilised and the brakes came on with such violence that the passengers shot forwards in their seats. Finally we trundled to a stop. I turned my phone on and received a message: ‘I’m sorry, I am not feeling well, I won’t be able to meet you tomorrow.’

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