September 11, 2008
Flight 3308 STL to PHL
Where: Over Illinois, I imagine
Listening to: Nothing but engines. I left my iPod at home…
It's raining below me. Raining hard, actually. Above are white, fluffy clouds which make the overall terrain look like Alaska in late winter by rail. Sure, THAT seems familiar… Two weeks ago I got lost twice in my own neighborhood.
This flight is usually filled with "regulars;" the same people I travel with every Thursday. Today, this is not the case. Today the flight is filled with talky, unusually jovial non-regulars, who actually purchase beverages and eat Cheezits (I can smell them). There are only two familiar people onboard: one in 1F, the other in 15F. I take my usual place in 7F. There's an interesting symmetry to our arrangement tonight. Interesting, that is, if you have absolutely nothing else to think about.
It's almost palatable, the one thing that no one is "thinking" about. In some weird nod to the date, the TSA security personnel at Lambert Field – that being the name of the airport in St. Louis – donned new uniforms.
There are empty seats on this always oversold flight. Yes. I thought about it, but I'm confident that barring unforeseen mechanical failure, this is undoubtedly the safest day of the year to fly. And apparently still the roomiest, even after 7 years.
I watched the unveiling of the Pentagon memorial this morning. I found it morbid that they would arrange the benches on the plane's trajectory, then sort the victims names on each according to age. I suppose I would have preferred something more random by way of positioning – like the random way those people ended up on that flight. And perhaps engraving the names on each bench alphabetically, rather than pointing out that the youngest passenger was three years old.
Morbid…
The benches and their little pools are beautiful, though.
