Plane Trip

Here I am again at this familiar thirty thousand feet, staring at an empty azure blue abyss and a shuddering plane wing. The guy in front of me has decided to take full advantage of the fact that yes, these airplane chairs can move back pretty far and you're crushing my flimsy food tray into my ribs thanks. Everyone seems to feel it necessary to make their bathroom trips last as long as humanly possible. Any kind of actual food they sell is frighteningly overpriced. Ham sandwich? No thanks, I would rather eat my fingers, the medical bills will probably cost less. And there's a baby crying. Why is there always a baby crying?

It's an interesting location, a plane. A hundred people smushed together in an enclosed space, suspended unnaturally in a giant metal box with wings, at a place in the globe's atmosphere a human body was never meant to experience, sharing no common connection or interest except for an ultimate geographical destination.

I like plane rides. I like the fact that most everybody here knows exactly what they're in for. I like knowing that for the next six hours, expensive sandwiches and crying babies are the worst problems I'll have to face in my life. I like the calm obscurity of knowing that in this place, "Cookies or pretzals, miss?" is the most important question I'll have to answer.

The only thing to do is sit here and stare out the vaccuum sealed window, looking down at the sun bouncing off the clouds and imagine they really are as soft and fluffy as you used to think they were when you were a kid.

Soon the plane will start to descend into the clouds, slicing through them like butter, and on the other side I'll be in a whole new world.

These cookies taste like soap.