Lonely. Boston is lonely, the skyline stands out so sharply against the cold whipping blue sky, that my hands starts to shake and I have to sit down. All I see are cold glass windows and buildings that house people churning away. I long for the before, I want to go back, I want to go back. To see her was to step in a waft of cold sharp morning air amongst lukewarm waves of lazy car exhaust. People were like fleeing dust marks on movie reels, but she held steadfast, splitting the waves side to side, holding me in her lee.
I am back, or perhaps I have left. AA4811, and I kept my face pressed out the window watching this minuscule world, full of small earthy-colored pinpricks moving in comic precision. The display was hypnotic, everything in infinite detail and suddenly this whole situation seemed unbearably funny and I couldn't help but to wish for my plane to crash.
I wished to die. It started as a dormant snag that snowballed into a speck of a crumb, and soon spread, dominating everything for a single purpose, dominating the whole of my thought with a determined helplessness that reasoned against reason, hoping purely and sincerely for catastrophe since I knew perfectly well that it wouldn't happen now, because it was too late. I was safe to kill myself, since I wouldn't die. I kept my nose pressed against the glass though, and waited for the explosion that would rip this can apart and empty the sardines out into free-fall towards the ground. My physics knowledge lacks air resistance, so I just calculated '32 seconds' and mused whether it would be enough time to call my family and friends on my cell handphone, feeling the wind whip by, tumbling slowly, weightless because I was falling, immortal because I was dying. Tumbling around and around while gleefully announcing on the phone to teary acquaintances that I was going to be dead to the world, and a martyr on television over bold sensational letters.
'Mother Sentenced', the headline read, and pictures of young innocent beautiful full-of-potential angelic cherubim divine composed enlightened children filled the screen, faces and bodies and background moving slowly and dramatically in a slight editing gimmick. Angry faces of the mother filled the screen, and short contextless meaningless excerpts from conversations passed by on tickers like drops of water running down vertical windows, leaving trails of dotted self-destruction and surface tension in their wake. It was hard not to feel detestment for the mother, for after all, she was Sentenced, no? Another necessary evil gone in this dust. Did you hear? She DROWNED her child.
I bought a book about Indians but not about India, and I read it on the plane with other Koreans not in Korea. The small purple doll was suffocating in my bag, because I had undid it from my collar as I arrived at New York. She had wound it several times around a button, but by the time I got off, it was hanging by only a double loop. A Nantucket Nectar and an Au Bon Pain sandwich made themselves down my throat like seductive snakes, nestling comfortably in the warmth of my belly, sleeping warmly and peacefully.
The rumble was only the turbulence. The left side touched down first, and as the plane shifted to bounce on its right side, I realized with fright and fascination that we were about to top over. The pilot must have done something, because we were all pushed back and then everything was a blur, the blue seats and the white interior running together like wet paint into Cerulean Blue like Robin Blue like young eggs of beautiful enlightened potential. I stopped praying then, nauseated.
I stepped out, dragging my bags behind, and I was surprised to see that the leaves were already falling off. It was almost fall. It was fall. We all sat in silence, all four of us thinking smoking writing listening sitting, waiting for the right time to come before we did split into our respective decisions.
I left last.