April Airplanes

Flight 2027
To Seattle with my friend the propeller.

I’m sitting in a little plane. My chair is about 4 and a half feet from the prop and as it spins flashes and whirs like a sharpened lawn mower blade. The plane has about a ten foot wingspan and makes an enormous noise and the interior cabin walls are made of tan, thin plastic not unlike construction paper. I can almost feel the draft from the window seams and can watch the swell and shudder of the aircraft’s. The flight is 30 minutes and a half hour too long.

The ashtrays are painted shut and the windows have no shades, and many of the decals that either have warnings or instructions on them are faded and terribly dog-eared. I won’t know which exit to run to once rivets start breaking and that horrible propeller shakes itself loose to find its way to tear right through my little oval window.

Oh good, we’re landing.

The best part is that you can watch the lowering of the landing gear and the rubber skid clouds on the tarmac

April 9, 2008