Death And Turbulence

For some rea­son, I’m always seat­ed by the wings of planes. It suits me fine, as I like to watch the dance of flaps as the pilots check their instru­ments and con­trols. It makes me think of how beau­ti­ful flight is, of what an accom­plish­ment of human­i­ty it is to get this giant con­trap­tion off the ground.

The cap­tain issues a word of cau­tion over the loud­speak­er in his gener­ic voice about cinch­ing up our seat belts because it’s going to be bumpy until we reach 20000 feet. Leaving at 1pm and arriv­ing at five in the after­noon, it remains day­light for the entire flight, as we’re chas­ing the sun around the hemi­sphere.

Flight infor­ma­tion flash­es in pairs on the TV screens:

Ground speed: 857k/h. Time to des­ti­na­tion: 14h 12m.
Altitude: 8000km. Distance to des­ti­na­tion: 15289km.

The man next to me reads People mag­a­zine to take his mind off the sud­den drops in alti­tude. He clutch­es his ster­num every time the plane dips sud­den­ly, and fum­bles around for the vom­it bag. Eventually, he set­tles his head on the upright tray.

Every shake and sud­den move­ment is a reminder of your mor­tal­i­ty.

I used to be scared of tur­bu­lence. Now I can’t tell if I’m used to it, or the fact that I’m going to die some day.

Leave a Reply