I am dead. I walk among the living though. I died in a plane crash when I was only eighteen years old. I guess I am still eighteen really, or I am nothing at all. I am no years old because the dead cannot be old.
August 2003
I’m on a plane to Hawaii getting ready to start my freshman year at UHH. For those of you who don’t know, that’s the University of Hawaii at Hilo. It is just about the midway mark from LAX to Honolulu right now and we’ve started to have some pretty heavy turbulence. I am thinking that there isn’t much use in putting on your seat belt if the plane is going to crash; a plane crash is an unlikely thing to survive. I am about to find out that I am wrong.
I am in the water now and I think I know that I am already dead. I can see my mom being pulled into a rescue boat, but my lifeless arm cannot reach out to wave to her. My voiceless lips will never again call her name.
August 2007
I can always tell the hopeful students from the grateful tourists. Today we have about five new kids wanting to stretch their wings and become independent adults. I always like to watch the ones that bring family with them; they have the most joy in their faces because they have someone to share their time with.
I am all alone, so sometimes I like to sit with a kid traveling all alone and watch the movie as I rest my head on their shoulder. I wish I could let them know that turning the little air vent knob wont warm them up while I am there.
August 2026
Today I am sitting with a man reading his classified section. There is never very much to do on a plane. Especially after twenty-three years. I think I could leave this plane, maybe find a new one. But I like to watch over the people that are coming and going. I like to make sure that everything has been checked, the fuel is full, the gages are all in working order. I always check the seat belt of every passenger should we hit any turbulence. I especially watch over those young girls with stars in their eyes. Eyes that are never on the horizon, but further off, into a distance of non-existence, into the land that I live in. Every once in a while someone will say hello to me.
August 2043
It’s been forty years today. Forty years I have stayed on this plane. This plane of existence that is always resting between the living and the dead. The land and the heavens. I do not know where I go to every time it lands, but it is a beautiful place. But I always get back on when my plane is about to take off. I am not able to be on the earth, the earth cannot hold my soul now that it is no longer material. So I must stay in the air. But every time we land, I am transported to a new place. A beautiful place. Sometimes I want to stay there, and sometimes I think I should, it is so calm and peaceful, so roomy, not like the halls of my plane. But then I hear the engine starting, and I am called back to my plane.
August 2079
None of my family has ever come to visit me on my plane. No one I know ever flies this jet. But I have often seen the same face, and I have come to consider the flight attendants and crew as my family. They are constantly changing and evolving, sometimes on member will be transferred, or another will have a baby and only return again for a vacation with the family.
I would be ninety-four today, if I were still alive.
But I am dead. So I guess I am still eighteen really, or I am nothing at all. I am no years old because the dead cannot be old.
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