Planes

"Dear, I fear, we’re facing a problem…"
-The Cardigans, "Lovefool."


The plane takes off, as all planes do. It is rising and rising and then circles around to assume its correct flight pattern. We are above the city, the houses and the freeways and the cars becoming smaller, the rough edges of the city smoothing themselves out in perfect correlation with the increasing altitude. Headline News is on the monitor. Most of the people are watching Chuck Roberts deliver the news about Bosnia rather than listening to what the pilot is babbling about, because you can never understand what they’re saying anyway. The really cute Steward is wearing a perfect smile exposing flawless bleached teeth and is passing out cola and nuts when the engine falls off and we plummet towards earth.

The feeling is similar to a roller coaster; climbing and climbing to the top of that first drop, the assured forward motion to the crest, and then thump! The brakes are released. And then thump! We lose the engine. The plane crests, suspended, time stretching to a point of delicious insanity. What will happen next?

Everything erupts simultaneously. As the plane noses downward, shaking and shuddering, the doomed occupants scream helplessly. Then the plane crests again, then again, replaying that horrible moment when forward motion is replaced with downward descent. I am rigid in my seat, trying to imagine I’m watching this catastrophe from the ground. Can’t. Let’s see…an object already falling at 32 feet per second, times a couple thousand feet, times, um, 200(?), 900(?) miles an hour, equals horribly dead, really soon.

Nothing works. The crest, that moment, overrides any other thought. We are hurtling towards the ground, towards the city, towards the freeway, and objects are coming back into proportion and we hit the ground, and objects are coming back into proportion and we hit the ground and I wake up, sweating. The apartment is quiet.

It’s 4 a.m., ____ still hasn’t come home, and I can’t go back to sleep. For two weeks straight, I’ve dreamt of planes.