Wednesday 28 September 2011

Shake, Settle Whole.

Somewhere, 30,00 feet nearer the stars than he, was she. She would be squashed, neck crooked, between two perfect strangers in an aluminium tube hurtling above the clouds. On a tiny screen she would be watching a film they had seen just two days earlier in the palatial surroundings of the Vue Westfield. They'd both agreed the film was shit, but she would plump for comfort and familiarity.

Somewhere, a few miles to the east, a man lay on his back atop Parliament Hill watching vapour trails. He was revisiting the past and considering a cigarette. His tee shirt, unchanged in two days, was dampening. He smoked the cigarette and considered bacon.

Seven or eight miles south east a man ignored his monitor. A tiny window and a gap between two other offices gave him all he had left of the outside world. He remembered the outside world quite clearly. It was big and smelt odd. He hoped to see it again sometime. She would be there now.

Seven hours later and some three and a half thousand miles to the west a man dozen on a bench next to the Hudson River. He hugged to his chest a brown paper bag containing an empty bottle. When his eyes flickered open the city towered above him but there were momentary glances of distant craft between the skyscrapers, piercing the blue sky. He'd only ever experienced that once.

Fifteen miles to the east another man sat in a tower watching dots on screens and, through the window, plane after plane kissing the tarmac hello and goodbye.

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