December 02, 2005

Pittsburgh – Parkersburg

The propellor of the the Beechcraft 1900D hummed like a hungry hummingbird left out shuttering in the snowstorm. Just outside the window the muffler coughed in the drone of the dark. it flickered like a candle and it was all i could see the freezing black of the appalachian air.

I turned up the volume and in the earphones. Caitlin Cary sang in vein against the strain of the propellors and black of the night and the cold of the snow. Above me was nothing and below me was nothing and the gray snow kept sliding silent and lonely past the window in the dark. Through the crack in the cabin door i could see the deep amber of the countless cockpit calculations that kept us on our vector over the mountains of west virginia.

Faith in a god help people live on earth. Faith in numbers keeps them alive while flying above it. And there are countless corners of this earth where things live and die by the means of which we have no idea. all at once i felt all i had was wrapped in the surface of my skin. moving like a pill i swallow without water. moving like a satellite spinning in space. moving like a blinking amber x across an arc of an equation in the middle of the dark and lonely appalachian air.

Posted by Todd Roeth at December 2, 2005 10:46 PM