Hope Again for a Weekend

They got us all on the plane, buckled up, powered off.  Now were just sitting here.  The plane’s departure is delayed by about one hour and a half.   But the last thirty minutes of that time has been just siting in the tarmac.  There is a saturated color photo of the place immediately in front of our plane on the screen up in front of me.  It appears that a man is driving a bus directly underneath the plane’s carriage.  The digital colors are all bled into some fuzzy, rusty smear on the screen.  A moment ago it was a movie about animals frolicking in the arctic snow. 

There is activity afoot.  Announcements are being made.  We have two young lads standing at attention staring down the cabin.  I’m in the bulkhead and I am hiding my backpack beneath my blanket.  I do this for convenience and because I can.  I am fifty years old.  I shouldn’t probably be wasting time sneaking my bag beneath me, skirting rules for convenience. 

I’ve got a middle seat.  Beside me are two rather uninspiring men my age.  The guy to the right has Robert Oppenheimer shoes on at the end of his legs that are pressed up into bulkhead wall.  The guy to the left sports Chinese slippers moving down around to the left.  Everyone within eyeshot is on We-chat.  Sooner or later they’ll insist I shut this down, but in the mean time. 

I’ve stared at this TV image before me for a while now.  I wonder if I would ever be able to recognize it again.   Would it be lost forever from cognizance after one day?  One week?  Out here on the tarmac there is no cell phone connectivity.  At least for my phone.

Hope again, for a weekend.  We’re moving and the image I’ll lever see again, although I’ve tried to overtly lodge it in case I do, is gone forever.  Sleep isn’t far off now.