There is an all-Gushers vending machine pressed against the outskirts of Terminal 2 at the airport. Outside its flappy gate stands an old toddler, transfixed. His mother is both filming him and telling him to stop. Wishful thinking, Darnell!
Beth bought me a new belt for our trip to Asheville. Its belt parts seem to be made out of incinerated plastic groupings of varying density; it smells strongly of manufacturing! My belt holds up my pants like the wings and jets hold up our plane.
I don’t have a knack for transcribing the information between A and B. No travel makes sense, by foot car or plane. Planes make the least sense. How can we arrive in Asheville in two hours?
I sat in my blue plane chair, a middle seat. Over the shoulders of those ahead, I saw the cockpit door open and close in a flash. What l saw debunked the mystery of flight:
Behind all the gauges, lights, and levers that made up the plane’s controls sat not a pair of pilots but the Blue Ridge Mountains themselves. Tucked in their trails were bears and mountain people and general stores; a downtown, art galleries and breweries. Asheville had a sunset for a head. Asheville was the pilot of Sun Country’s flight 307. To arrive in Asheville passengers simply had to mind the shoulders of those sitting in the aisle seats. They had to grab their luggage and knock politely on the pilot’s door, behind which Asheville flies blindly toward the blue expanse. Did Darnell and his mother board this flight or Orlando’s?