[disclaimer: what you are about to read is offensive. it is one pilot's personal account of life in and above some of the craziest places in the world.

long ago i derailed myself from the respectable airline track that most pilots aspire to. instead i chose adventure: different airplanes, jobs, and countries. i wanted to serve some of the poorest downtrodden souls on the forgotten corners of a planet. you will read about refugees who have nothing and live in war zones; victims of rape and senseless rebel violence. people who are basically being kept alive and dependent by western 'aid' while we extract their countries' resources.

i understand that it all may be a tad uncomfortable. hell, i hope it twists your entrails. that's the whole point of writing it down and releasing it into the wild. awareness, the seed of potential change.

a note on literary style: many ex-patriates and aid workers acquire an extra-dry sarcastic sexually-twisted gallows-type humor in the field. it is one of the things that helps you get through the day and cope with the madness of the job. an evolutionary adaptation, if you will. and i will.

i hope you can differentiate the serious from the tongue-in-cheek ironic. i want you to be offended by what is happening in the world, rather than how i paint it.

and if all of that makes you queasy, you are probably not tall enough for this ride.

thanks for reading! -p]

Saturday, August 29, 2015

who knows when the sunrise will be

i take a sip of coffee and try to blink away the unbelief that i'm waking up at 2:45 am mountain time.  this early east-coast showtime shit is for the birds.  roll my rollie down the jetway and begin to build my nest in the darkness. in the right seat, where the real work is done. get the paperwork and start fingerbanging the box with the flight plan.  do a quick walk around.  all the big pieces are in place.  good enough.  we push and start and taxi and cruise through all the checks.  capt. lines up the bird on the centerline and we blast off in the darkness.  thank gawd it's his turn to fly, and all i have to do is talk on the radios.  

the air is still and glassy as we lift off through the low layer of stratus surrounding indianapolis, slowly but surely ascending to take our place among the stars, anti-collisions sending their radio signals into deep interstellar space.   we point the thing west and i look out my office window towards the tail and all that we are leaving behind. the eastern skyline ignites in a thin hot line of orange, with the blackness smoothly fading to lighter and lighter shades of blue.  the great arc-welder is at it again. 

running away from the light, away from the sunrise, but it's not fast enough. being overtaken even at .80 mach. another plane checks in with indy center, but it's mostly quiet as our ship rises to her rightful place 38,000 feet above the sleepy midwest. 

i think about the beauty of this planet, the lumpy grey blanket of clouds far below caressing a million dreamers as the planet spins towards its inevitable reunion with the light.  despite my exhaustion i am happy to be alive and privileged to be witnessing this miracle from 6 miles above the firmament.  i can't decide whether or not to believe in something. it's just before 7 in the great pacific glassiness above, sleepy and craving.  

what i don't realize is the dream below has turned into a nightmare. two television reporters in their twenties are bleeding out, all their potential and possibilities dripping into the dirt. laying in pools of warm sticky salty red, victims of another senseless shooting by a goddamn lunatic.  here in the country where you can't take my guns away.  where guns out number people.  where this always happens. and where we can't understand how or why it possibly could.  where we are paralyzed and tranquilized any time someone brings up the reasonable idea of background checks or psychological evaluations as a prerequisite for weapons purchase.  it's hard to have any faith in anything anymore.  what a fucking shitshow!  our planet has a chronic infection of humanity that just won't go away. i am numb again, and hurting for the families who just woke up for the last time in their peaceful life.  a neverending heartache has taken its place. 
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