Saturday, January 29, 2011


I sat on the plane awaiting the take off and watched the flow of humans as they strode down the aisle in search of their assigned seats. All of them glancing over the crowd of people who were already seated and totally unaware of the circumstances that each person silently carried with them to the destination that was so meticulously printed on their piece of paper that gave them the right to be aboard the aircraft that would fly them safely to their arrival gate. I wondered about how many of the people really cared about all who flew with them or if they were just focused on getting to where they were bound, either way I contemplated about how all the strangers would react if an emergency would occur in the air. I glanced around to find my exit bearings and carefully scanned the people surrounding me to sense with whom I would be entwined with should an event occur. I turned to look out the window and saw my tired reflection in the plexiglass window and took a good look and asked myself how I would react if something were to happen.
As we backed away from the gate I had become lost amidst the mind transit train that took me away from the reality that took place as the plane shook and suddenly leaped into the air gaining altitude. I had left my earth plane and now was being lifted to another plane that was not reality, but to a plane of realities that I had never ventured on in my conscious surroundings. That consciousness was left at the boarding gate and was somehow packed within the suitcase that was stored somewhere that I could not see. The face that stared back at me became an illusion which changed face structure as the plane danced across the sky. The light beams that shuttled in and out as the craft moved directions warmed my skin and melted the cold feelings that surrounded my momentary lapse of consciousness.
I felt myself slip out of the body which housed my brain and I found myself at the front of the airplane looking back into the crowd of people all buckled up with hope. The next few hours would tell if their hope would pay off or be challenged by a series of unfortunate events. Little did I know that the events to which I unconsciously assumed might arrive, began to take their shape into an illusion beyond my wildest cognitive realities. Desperately searching for someone I knew that might be aboard the craft, I felt myself walk the length of the plane toward the back to pull someone I might know into the situation that I found myself in. It was not to be however. Now as I turned from the back and looked forward my view of things had become immensely distorted and foggy as if a haze had blurred the forward vision I so desperately needed to connect with.
Everyone aboard had no clue as to what was happening within the confounds of my mind as I had taken, what I thought were great strides, to become invisible to the people who were surrounding me. I had thought of screaming to get attention and quickly extinguished that idea as too ridiculous. I somehow knew that an impending personal situation would be happening soon that should awaken the consciousness of every passenger aboard. Why did I have the knowledge of this upcoming scenario? I could not seem to connect with the brain waves to get the answer I so greatly needed.
My personal reality dilemma became infused into the haze that hung over everything that I looked at.
Quickly questions began pouring out of me and I could not harness them nor bear the pain that each delivered with it's pungent sting upon arrival into my mind. The panic that ensued sent shock waves throughout my entire being. All eyes suddenly were on me and I seemed trapped by my own self made demise. There was nowhere to run and no exit with which to leave through. The fleeting image of the person in the plexiglass was now distorted beyond recognition.
What transpired from that moment on would alter the course of my life as I once knew it to be before that walk down the gangplank in the the belly of the beast of aeronautical design.

How could it be that no one aboard knew me. I recognized more faces as I stared back at them all. We must have flown together before yet no connection of familiarity or memory was to be found. I was aware of flight passengers that are on your life flight for a while and then exit the gates and are never heard from again but it seems that all had gathered here on this flight for one last trip together. My emotions pierced my eyes as if a monsoon unleashed torrents of water that rained down my face and wet the plexiglass that held the image that unmercifully kept staring back at me.
What was happening to me and why did the oxygen masks drop from overhead? I needed air as the observing view took my breath away once more. Suddenly a blip of cognitive reality made me realize that the people on board were passengers with whom I shared bits of my life with at various times. These people shuffled in and out of my life each receiving what was needed in order for them to move to their next life destination.
It was hard to put names with the faces that stared back at me but I did recognize them and once again felt their presence in my life on this journey that unfolded before me. I hunted frantically for more people who I thought would have to be on this flight of mystery, yet they were not to be found. I grabbed the oxygen mask and breathed deep for some air to try and help pull me back to observe and hope they might magically appear if I just breathe deep,close my eyes and calmly acknowledge
their absence. I could not understand why they were not here with me when it seemed that I needed them the most. Who were these people that seemed so distant from what was transpiring. I only knew that their presence was not where I needed them to be.

I removed the mask from my face and felt lightheaded and dizzy from trying to make heads or tails at what was happening to me. I noticed suddenly that my previous observation had changed when I looked down the aisle. Everyone was now unfamiliar and strange. I knew no one aboard the aircraft and the masks that once fell from overhead had disappeared. I turned to look into the small plexiglass window and my reflection was no longer visible as the night had taken possession of the sky and the view of the blackness absorbed all that entered it's space. My concept of time had been lost and with the cold smack of reality I reentered the body from which I had left unconsciously from hours ago.
From the look on my face it was apparent that I had some kind of epiphany. The passenger that sat to my right asked if I was alright, to which I quickly answered that I was not so sure at the moment. I needed to take in the actuality of what had previously transpired and what happened during the time that I ran amok inside my head.
Over the speaker we were informed to prepare for landing. Not only did I need to prepare in the aircraft for it's safe landing I suddenly knew I had to prepare for a personal landing of my own. I could not shake the feeling that I had been given a view into my future. Some kind of recognition had taken place and I needed to sort out the signs that were held within the spectral mind film. I would exit this winged machine with an insight into what would soon lay ahead for me. How I would decipher the information would be answered at a pace that only held twenty fours hours at a time, no more and no less.
As quickly as the wings leapt into the air from take off, the landing wheels suddenly grabbed at the tar mack and the pullback from the force of the brakes sent us all back against our seats with a the silent thanks that we had arrived safely with no unfortunate events. I turned towards the small oval window and was greeted with a reflection that resembled the person I had seen in the mirror earlier that morning. Only this time I looked a little more inward at what was staring back at me.

The whole experience had taken me on a flight within a flight. I had not actually left the ground but had drifted off to sleep which parlayed into the dream that had awakened me not just from sleep but in other ways as well. As I merged the facts from the fantasy that had played out in my sleep I knew that I had looked back in time and could sense a new future landing in a place still to be determined. In my dream the observation from such a high altitude in dream space opened my eyes to the fact that the past is no longer a reality and the future will be ascertained by the seat that I assign myself on any given flight of chance or risk.

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