Descent

  Look at me, going on vacation n' stuff.  Haven't been back on the electric typewriter for quite a while.  This story and the next were two experiences I managed to write down while I was dying from the heat.

*  *  *

  A light rumble shakes our stomach and rattles out fears. Even the seasoned veteran drinks down the lump of spit he's held in his throat. It feels like we're in the middle of a city being heavily shelled before the wheels pick us up into the fog. I like to imagine it's the wind dragging past us that we hear but I know it's the turbines firing us into a fury. The cabin levels out and we pick our heads out of our seats and our stomachs from our feet. The thought of an unfair and statistically unlikely death is on everyone's minds. Some more than others but it's there. There's only one thought that calms me. It shouldn't, but it does-- “I'm in their world now.” Whether the pilot is a drunken slouch or he's the world's best who's just damned with a faulty plug, I'm in the control of everyone's prayers. I'm thinking things I shouldn't-- “There's always something wrong.” Could be a bolt just loose enough to be a worry, it is something. And do they ever know? Do they know about the belt on the main component that's been stretched and spun out of its pulleys and breaking the fan with the force of its seats forward trays up buckle in we're making our descent.