Saturday, November 28, 2009

This heart is small










This heart is small, two layers of meat thick and dusty, old. The sad smells like old airplane as if the disinfectant had long ago given up reaching crashes. The wing appears still, even though I know hurtling through the clouds at 0mph. The moon is bright, so I lower the heavy breathing shade halfway. The person in the seat next shifts in her sleep and her head droops dangerously close to my territory. I shift towards the breathing, feeling its security, until realizing that this piece of pain is all that stands between me and falling to my death.

The moon is glancing off the clouds; it’s very bright, as if giant poufs of Styrofoam were squirted from a canister and left to float in the skies. The plane is shaking and she is rubbing her eyes in that first confusion between sleep and a painful reality. I remember a dream. I don’t know why I don’t notice that we’re going straight down, but suddenly I look up at the scream and all I can think in that split second is the scream is strangely muted. We are headed straight towards the senses - seconds away from impact. A joke, and gape at the war rushing at us. This is it? I recall thinking. I don’t want to die like this. I have so many people to tell I love them.

I shake myself. This plane ride is not my dream. We are still flying straight, as I can tell by looking at the clouds that surround us. The go endlessly, curving only slightly down towards the blue sky. Nobody I care about on this flight, even though I might at any moment die, our lives snuffed out as one. I am curious. I wonder how we might die. Will we fall asleep and feel nothing? Will we be hurtled from the wreckage and freeze to death? Or plunge to the earth as it rushes to meet us? Or the worst, I imagine, being strapped in for the duration for the fall until impact, where upon the plane is torn to bits or explodes in a heart burst.

STOP IT! I tell myself sternly. But I can’t stop longing for the mundanes of this. The sound of people rustling the crisp. Each one of us is a planet, I would hate. A small speck, far away, but running fast, unencumbered by limitations of physics. I look at my hands, to ensure I’m not dreaming, and study a cold fingers. I am flesh. I am temporary.

I look again, unsure whether my fear is more about seeing again, or not seeing. I look. running, further. Far away, but ever watchful. I have odd pains in my right side. Not painful, but certainly not pleasant. At least it’s just my heart, I muse, and look back out the window, doing flips and no man should. I press my fingers to the glass (it’s definitely paper!!) hard and leave imprint. The plane is calm again and one by one you can almost feel the popping sighs of relief as another releases her grip on the armchair, forgets about the tin can in the heart. The plane begins a descent. The air begin to engulf us and Nothing to see, always there, dancing and playing, carefree and mad.

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