Plane

My soul weeps. The hallow interior echos. White paint flakes on the window sill. I pick nervously and press my nose against the cool window. My small breath clouds the panes. Dark leafy vegetation sprouts beneath. Rain drops fall like meteors. The leaves tremor with every splash. My eyes beam cross the thick lawn, deep into the penetrating forest. Waiting.

I turn and slide down the wall. My laces are in knots. The raw wood floor is bare and nicked all over, with dust and lint hiding in the crevices.

Floral designs repeat on the wavering paper walls, peeling at the edges. I fixate on an vertical schism, observing a mismatch in patterns. Flowering buds split and bulge and warp because of some careless application of wall paper.

My thumb massages the warm buckeye, while my pointer fingers the hole in my pocket.

“Welcome to flight 6749 to San Francisco. Please buckle you seatbelt as we’re preparing to taxi for takeoff. “

“We apologize for the mechanical delays. We’ll make sure to make up for the lost time in the air.”

I cock my head. An obese Native American man with enlarged earlobes and long obsidian hair stares out the small window. Various native jewelry ornament his neck and wrists.

I close my eyes and breath a sigh.

A howling screech and large crash jolt me from sleep. I sit up, with headphones still playing Ludovico Einaudi’s aural dreams. There is visible panic throughout the cabin. I can’t make out what the pilots announce on the intercom, but I somehow don’t seem to mind. Agitation ripples through the rows. A bright yellow light flashes from the right side of the plane, and I close my eyes. There is a roll and a pitch, followed by a sudden feeling of weightlessness. The cabin lights are on, but my eyes are still closed, still being serenaded by the piano music.

My body is thrown violently back and forth, as if caught in the jaws of a vicious animal, flailing in every direction.

Blackness leads to silence and then coldness, and finally wetness. I can hear a crackling echo above and all around me, but I don’t move. I want to dream.

I push my limp body up off the icy ground and find myself in a dark forest, which looks like it’s been shredded with a wood chipper. Glints of flickering light cast shadows all around me. I walked to the fuselage, stepping over soft dark masses blotting the snow. Perhaps soil, perhaps clothing, perhaps something darker. As my eyes peak around the fuselage, I see the inside, with the top cleaved off like a sardine can, and rows of bodies strapped to their seats. There is no movement among the twisted wreckage. Lifeless limp bodies. Only a handful of small fires burn. There is a noxious scent of fumes in the air.

There is no moon, and the full brunt of Arctic like temperatures began to seize my body.

I climb to the top a wing laying against a thicket of felled trees to see above the tops of the tree line. Snow capped mountains extend into endless receding rows as far as my eyes can see.

I am all alone.