The sky is burning orange and the plane defies all laws of rationality as it rockets toward the deep of the Pacific. By reason, this plane should not disobey gravity, my eyes should not turn particles of dust and rays of sun into the brilliant orange and pink that burns with temerity through slightly swollen, grey fingered clouds.
The plane lurches then drops over the mountain tops, whose snow capped peaks seem too close. It rights itself, though the frame still shudders and my hand moves jauntily with the vacillation of the plane. Now, a moment of smoothness as we move through a dense, smoke colored fog. The lights on the wing blink in the darkness and I feel almost safe.
How is that I must go west to go east? An ember of sunset burns through and the wisps of cloud evaporate like vapor.
We move through the clouds and the plane is now only lurching occasionally. I am seeking the remnant of day through my window. My forehead presses against the cold plexiglass as I wonder, how many things had to happen in order for me to be right here, right now? How many hands moved on my behalf unseen, to bring me here, seatbelted into this seat, hurtling through cottony grey to land next to the ocean, only to retrace my path toward home?
The sun has fled and only a string of silvery white shows that the sun ever shone and I now I most certainly belong to the night. The dark will not claim me, for tomorrow I will step away from this ominous tube and reclaim the ground beneath me. Now we ascend the grey and the sun once again reigns, claiming victory as its right.
This plane could fall from the sky and I could lie in pieces on the desert floor, returned to my natural state. Without being present, what would survive? A cloud is laid flat like a plate with an incongruity of seeming trees sprouting from it and the sunset burns like a fire beneath it. Impermanence is evident here (although by its very name it can't be known) but I know that this plane will not reject me from its womb, that tomorrow I will decide what to make of my clouds. What form shall they take?
An unholy grid of lights erupts underneath and Las Vegas mushrooms in all its garish glory. Perhaps the heat of the desert floor burned the clouds through; the sky is clean like flint. Still, the wing lights blink, the plane steadies, and I press my head against the window, watching the final descent of the sun.
