from the archives: I am not scared of flying

Pure self-indulgence! I enjoyed writing this one.

I am not scared of flying.

Blithely confident, I know this awkward, over-weighted cylinder can rise on slender tip-tilted wings and the invisible laws of so-and-so and such-and-such and rise, dandelion-puff light, into the unseen air.

I am not scared of flying.

We are pushed back into our seats, and - there! - that breathless moment when all the laws of gravity dissolve and we lift, lift to become that distant, silver form hanging suspended, moving with grave slowness across the sky, like a thought of adventure to the watchers on their tiny squares of suburban lawn below.

I am not scared of flying.

I crane my neck and press my cheek to the glass to inspect the wing and count the engines (One? Only one? What if one should fail?) and watch the orange lights of my city shrink to become the ragged outline of the bay. One of those lights is mine, my home, with my family behind lighted glass, my children, my sick child is there, somewhere in those fading lights is there, and - what if that single engine should fail?

I am not scared of flying.

There is time for boredom, and popping ears, and boredom, and the looping advertisements on the small square of screen, and boredom, and "what to do in the unlikely event of an emergency", and boredom, and fiddling with the light overhead, and boredom, and peeking at my seat-mate's sudoku, and boredom, and -

I am not scared of flying.

We tilt at a precarious angle over an invisible line and begin the slow slide down into the inverted star-field of a new city. Then - once! twice! - the plane leaps and the lights swing - up! down! - like coloured lights seen from a fairground ride, this is fun, this is a fairground ride, look! a ferry, look! a bridge, look! a lighted bouquet of towers, a spinning lighted bouquet of flowers, I can do this.

I am not scared of flying.

But the wind heaves beneath us, and the bucking plane shudders and twitches its metal skin, and we descend and speed past the quietly housed planes in their airport hangars only to rise again, and there is no reassuring message from the pilot, and we loop out over the ocean and circle around and descend again, and I press my face to the cool shaking side of the plane and close my eyes and take brief sickening glimpses of that swinging upside-down star-field and close them more tightly and cling to the seat in front and count slow breathes through the tightening band around my chest and hear loud retching in the seat behind and pray fragments of prayers and feel my bloodless face cold and finally, with a crunching, inevitable finality, we land, thank God we land, somewhere people are clapping and we land, but I can't move, my legs won't move me, my shaking legs won't move me.

I am not scared of flying.

6/8/08