Flying in Circles

We are flying low enough to see the hay fields I just passed by car. They are randomly scattered with what looks like huge loaves of kneaded bread. The rest of the sections of land, bordered by what must be roads and river courses, lie uncut; uncombed and tangled by the wind moving over it. I imagine I see an enormous scalp of blond hair. Really, I know it's only hay that looks very strange because I'm very high.

I think that the storm has something to do with the delay going on. My pilot isn't getting permission from the nearby control tower to climb to higher. The tower's lingo is in code, at once metallic and mushy.

"Why can't we fly in the rain?" I have to shout to talk to my pilot because my headphone's speaker doesn't work.

From inside of my headset his voice sounds godlike and metaphoric, like an unconscious inner voice.

"Because we can't see."

Seeing, I have an insight. I know this is the right thing to be doing now. Withdrawal doesn't necessarily mean rejection. This guy isn't protecting himself behind some intentional facade, not a malicious one either. He is just handling an effective shield, deflecting possible power maneuvers. No wonder I am confused about him. He seems to think that withholding a secret is entertaining. No dishonesty is necessary.

We are flying clear of the storm. The bor's nose nudges above the horizon. Its body smoothly rotates into a spinning shaft. Now we are facing the storm. That was the bottom half of a loop, I realize.

The horizon drops behind me again, along with everything else in my intestines. Now I am hanging upside-down from my seat belts. I reflect that he is doing a pretty adequate job of erasing any notions I might have had about what's next in the routine. He doesn't know that I have never been in a bor before, let alone flown any other way than right side up.

My grasp of gravity feels like the inside of a miniature snowflake. Right, backwards, and leftovers are all somewhere else.

He keeps going because he must be able to hear me giggling. I keep laughing, I can't stop laughing. At first, I don't know why I'm laughing so hard. Then I realize that I am laughing at myself, at my fear and trust and everything else all rolled up together.

I am remembering all those times when I felt grief. I am thinking about all those times I had let other people be my first priority. I did it because I feared their imminent death. Now, here I am with my body telling me I'm about to die. My mind knows better, so the sensations of panic are just sensations. I trust this pilot. It's all a fertile paradox. It's funny.

Now suddenly, I understand why my whirlpool of grief had always returned.

I never dared to polish and shine the talent I could offer you, Mr. Any-Man. Always, I let you take it from me before it was polished. All because any one of you every-people might die before I saw you again.

With casual expertise, my pilot points our nose of the bor down. The noises stop. I don't hear the overters over the wind's rushing. I watch the wings outside the cockpit begin to trace the outline of a spiral. They are picking up speed. The world spins, wheel of fortune style.

Suddenly my predicament becomes something more than figurative. I stop feeling that the scene outside is an interesting, exciting movie. I am the one that is spinning, that is the ground for real, and the ground IS heading closer. I am going for the ground in circles, in this seat, right now. All of a sudden I've lost my trust in this pilot.

My friend turns around to face me to the back of the seat-rest.

Quite cheerfully he inquires, "Shall we bail out now?"

"You're kidding," I hope he doesn't hear my yelling as total panic.

"Go ahead, laugh again." He turns around, re-starts up the engine, and pulls the bor out of its nose-dive.