An Essay for the Window Seat

Have you ever gone to the airport and gotten there early, so early that you could stand to wait in all of the lines without tapping your feet to a beat only you can hear? Did you triumphantly file through the last security checkpoint only to realize that you were so early you had an hour to spare? Did you sit in the food court, perhaps, or maybe ride the train back and forth, back and forth, until the clock stopped counting down from one million and started counting down from ten? Why have you never done that? Why do you want to?

Did you hurry, then, on your way to your gate? Did you take that last step up the ramp into the waiting area and find a seat off in the corner, next to a stranger with dark hair down to her shoulders and a man next to her in a jacket just his size? Did you watch the nails of the other girl across from you—acrylic, long, rectangular, with French tips in varying pinks, one missing from her left hand?

Why her and her nails, and not those of her friend? Was it her drink? Her phone? Did you imagine who made that drink, and when, and what they must have been thinking and feeling? Did you wonder why, perhaps, they chose to work in an airport Starbucks and go in and out of security every day? Do airport employees have to do that? Do you even care?

Did you startle slightly as your boarding group was called, like you hadn’t expected it even though you had? Did you file onto the plane, one sheep among the herd, all wool-cloaked and bleating? Did you find your seat by the window and slide the blind up? Then back down? Why did you put it back down? Was it the sun? The glare? What do you have against the light?

Did you sit some more and stare at your closed blind and wait until the rest of the plane was full, sheep and all? Did you put your headphones in and not even pretend to listen as the pilot rattled off his pre-flight announcement? Have you actually ever listened to those? Have you really? Why did you stop?

Did you open your window, then, as the plane began to slide slowly forwards? Did you watch as it went faster and faster, picking up speed, the world blurring together as you raced down the runway? Did you watch the ground fall away, then, as you rose into the air? Did you watch the trees, the roads, the lakes? Did you see the sky? Did you see the houses, rows of them, spiraling out into the ambling shape of your city? Did you trace your route back, then, from home to work, work to school, in and out of the water? How did you stop?

As the plane banked and your world below grew smaller and smaller, what did you know to seek out? What were you looking for? And how could you ever tear your eyes away?