The Flight Down

I envy pilots their cockpit view. No doubt they're busy with screens, controls and navigational systems but surely they take in the view piloting gifts them.

We're flying at 39,804 feet, going 465 mph. I like measurements understandable to me (not metric).

Out of my foolscap-sized window, I view the topography of clouds. Their variety amazes; there are rifts and swirls and hills and valleys. It is the land of fluff, bubbled, wavy. Wave-tips catch the rays of the descending sun. Off the horizon, a silver dart, another plane like us, heads opposite: north. We fly over a disintegrating contrail, leaving our own mark.

Predominately white and gray-blue, the clouds are wispy horse-tails as the little map on the back of the seat fronting me indicates we're sliding over Pennsylvania.

I like this ethereal realm where the insubstantial looks substantial, where the colours calm, and the horizon is clear and unsullied.