Thoughts from the big flying tin in the sky: Part II

When I fly, I usually like to get the window seats. I like looking out and wonder how this big piece of tin ever gets off the ground. It still fascinates me even with all the flying I do. I also take the window seats because I’m always looking for little gremlins that might be tearing up the engine and wings during the flight. They’re there, and it’s people like me that keeps them honest. Of course I wouldn’t know what to do if I do see one out there, or why they would be afraid to tear out the engine and wings if I’m staring at the wings. Let’s not be logical and think too much here people. We’ll have none of that on my blogs.

Anyway, during night time flights, it’s wonderful to stare into the window to see all the little plots of lights among all the vast darkness that surrounds it. For brief moments I imagine these lights as the last pockets of humanity struggling to fight off the creatures that were brought when the sun went out, and the darkness came. That’s just silly though. Everyone knows robots will be the end of us. That or dubya. I regress.

So I stare down on the land and I wonder who these people are and what their lives are like. What are the stories they have to tell? Would I care to hear them? Would I like them? Would they like me? Could someone down there be a new friend, a new source of dislike, a new love? The answers to these questions aren’t so much relevant. What I think bothers me is that I will never know. Never will I spend enough time to find out these people’s stories. Be it they be interesting or mundane, strange or common, doesn’t matter, I won’t ever know.

That’s why I think airports are so interesting. For those brief moments, or hours, or many many painfully boring delayed hours, people from all these areas of the world come together in one place. They all come from areas that I may never be, and all going to areas that I may also never go. But for that time they are in the airport, we are all in the same place, at the same time. Each time at each airport is unique. Enjoy it.