Flight
It’s not that I’m afraid of flying. I am okay with being in the air. I like airports, and I like planes, and I like being in transit. There is a freedom to being between places, with little to do but wait. I read a lot, on planes, with a speed that I will never manage on the ground. Nor, as the old joke suggests, am I afraid of the landing if things go wrong, although I do think about it as we taxi down the runway. I close my eyes and picture the moment of impact. Or, rather, a moment of impact, as I expect the image in my head bears no relationship to the reality of connecting with the ground. In my imagination the human body is like a squishy china vase, tipped from the edge of a table and allowed to hit the floor. In my imagination we do not squish, but shatter. We disintegrate on impact, reduced to wet,
