Obeliskian Sky
Simon had never liked flying. Being 30 feet in the air was enough to make him distinctly queasy, so 30,000 feet was never going to be a comfortable place to be. On top of that, he had an instinctive distrust of airplanes. Metal, he had always though, shouldn’t fly. It sinks in water, it sits on the earth. It was not made to be up in the air. He could never quite rid himself of the idea that once the plane had reached its maximum height, it was merely falling very slowly.
This flight, however, was worse than normal. Despite his pleading and begging he had a wing seat. Nothing reminded him more of the flimsiness of existence at this height than looking out on the fragile expanse of thin metal meant to be keeping him in the air. He had been dealing with the nausea quite well for the past couple of hours, controlling his fears with complimentary booze. However, he had just looked out of the window and seen a distinct whole in the wing which appeared to be spouting black smoke. Almost hyper-ventilating, he pleaded and pleaded with the air hostess to confirm or deny whether or not this was normal, but she seemed to ignore him completely. This didn’t help. Once, on a previous flight, years ago, the turbulence they had encountered had almost led to a very embarrassing incident, as only a strong effort of will-power had kept his sphincter clenched. He could feel a similar incident approaching now, as he swore he could see tiny flames dancing on the wing tip. He must be imagining things. He ordered another drink off the absent minded cabin staff, and hoped beyond hope that this one would at least aid him in sleeping.
No such luck. He looked out the window again, and tried to bob his head, to cancel out the visible vibration of the wing. Shit. Shit. Was this what a panic attack felt like? He looked round, into the calm face of his sleeping neighbour and felt insanely jealous. He tried to breath slowly, but it wasn’t helping. Good Christ, could nobody else feel the way the plane was juddering? Shit. He picked up a magazine, but it didn’t help. Every smiling face he saw in the photos seemed to be contorted into a mask of terror as he imagined them as his fellow passengers, screaming as they dived at some ungodly speed into the Atlantic ocean. Why didn’t they give you fucking parachutes on these things? Christ.
It was moments later, as he reached for the sick bag, just in case, that the plane genuinely shook and juddered. He knew it wasn’t him this time, there were real screams from other passengers. Fuck. Was this really happening? Please, please let this be some fucked up nightmare. Suddenly, the screams intensified, and he looked round just in time to see the engine on the other side of the plane rip off, and fly past the windows across from his. Oh fuck fuck fuck. This was really it, he was actually going to die. He vomited, missing the bag by a large margin, and waking up his neighbour. She went from angry to shit scared in about the time it took her to feel the plane begin to spiral. The screams in the cabin were dull, mute, to Simon now. He felt himself begin to black out, and felt glad. At least he wouldn’t feel his own demise. Just before the darkness over-took him, he glanced out of his own window, where the black smoke was now a torrent, and the flames were reaching the wing tip. At the very last moment of consciousness, so close to sweet nothing-ness he thought he must be hallucinating, he saw it. At the very edge of the wing, standing there as if it the most normal thing in the world. The Obelisk.
It looked maudlin.
The shops are all shut and it’s raining. There is a man in beaten trousers. He carefully treads the street as though the pavement might break underneath him. I sit in the car and cry my eyes out. What do people do when they get soaked in the rain and have nowhere to go? They must just find somewhere to shelter and wait, the rain dripping slowly from their clothes.