Coming down

It’s early and the sky is downcast, reflecting the early morning kinks that leak from the displaced and sleep-deficient. Irritable at the early instant coffee, just enough to block a nap as we taxi, not enough to keep the words of the book before me in order — we nod and mumble, not looking. The runway winks.

We’re up and away between belligerent clouds and quickly. Uncertain air tangles with our wings. The turbulence bites. Now we are strangers, shaking in a grey area. Eyes glance off each other as they meet. Are these the last faces I’ll take in?

Falling is the first fear. The crown jewel of human phobia. We are over-invested in our gravity, it seems. Suspended, we radiate a primal terror. We’re unearthed live wires, dangling exposed. Not so clever now. Physics is revolting.

The arrogance of mechanical flight and its engineered tension leave iron on my tongue and knots in my superstring.

I use “my” and not “one” — I am not one, I am beginning to splinter.

Butterflies flap a vortex in my core. My solar plexus is Swiss cheese. Has my mouth got the guts for this disaster? A sweaty palm slides over the armrest — perhaps I should have had that meal … broken that hard, cold bread.

My ego is mortified. He’s seen the world a month after someone dies — flat and smooth and forgetful, a lake that’s drunk a baptism victim. Such pomp and not even a ripple. My mouth is very, very dry. The wings are flapping, they’re flapping out there in the rain, god, can you see them?

Our plane is off kilter, we plunge in silence, embracing each other with our eyelids. It’s a sad reach, and only in disaster. Now naked, there are no differences. Not in this exact moment.

Then it hits me: this is my South Africa. We are shoulder to shoulder in a pressurised vessel, aiming beyond our individual ability, our faith placed in air and invisible pilots, distorted voices trained to lull. We cannot fly, our windows look out to the side. It is not our business, just get us there, we insist. And how we will squeal if let down. It is not fair, we are too important to be lost. Our equal rights beat yours. Not once have we seen the cockpit up close, never have we tried to read the dials or enquire after the one actually flying. No, we have “made a scene”, we have developed righteous hypertension. This is what we do.

Our perception of self-importance has no matter. I am 22A … hear me roar … The crash will take us all, and leave those on the ground broken all the same. All the same.

We level out. We land alone. We leave quietly.