On my home from St. Louis, after half an hour of waiting on the ground, at the terminal, watching as the pilot tried desperately to feign confidence and simultaneously figuring out how to keep the plane from mysteriously shutting down (and failing at both, I might add), our take-off began into the stormy St. Louis night sky.
The take-off was uneventful, but as our journey crossed the border into Oklahoma, we, as passengers with nothing better to do then drink flat coke and thoughtfully chew our six peanuts into mash, stared out the windows into the open maw of one of those ubiquotous fall Oklahoma thunderstorms.
Lulling off to sleep in the dim haze of the cabin, stirred only by the nervous shudder of the plane as it darted through headwind turbulence, I gazed out through the window into a sea of black, the inkiness only broken by the occassional wink of the red devil running lights.
A flash off to the east. My imagination? Snapped out of sleep, I peer through the plexiglass to search in the darkness, my hands up comedically to block out the light from the cabin’s unnatural sun.
In an instant, an explosion of light in the distance illuminates the horizon of cloud and sky, creating the illusion of rolling battlefield hills, bombs and mortars detonating in some unseen war amongst the gods.
A moment of darkness, like the pause before a symphony begins, and another rocket explodes, this one right below us, illuminates the sea of clouds we’re skimming above and shatters the illusion in perfect illumination of the false color of blue night sky.
Countless more flashes erupt and sputter amongst the barren landscape of clouds as we ride over the center of the storm: some forgotten elder-god’s orchestra of light.
Time passes, but I’ve lost track. Minutes, seconds, or hours, the moments are only counted by the breathless, stomach-turning expectation waiting for the next strike to shatter the horizon into a sea of stark-contrasted light.
Off to the Southeast, a break in the clouds, and the shining, pimply city, our destination, is within view, ringed by a circle of clouds, a haven from the stormy opus.
The symphony continues its barrage of light, the war amongst gods continues, but off in the distance, like the finalization of some forgotten masterpiece, all the notes and musical phrases closing and turning inwards towards the end, encompassing the twinkling civilization-laden ring of city, its own musical lilt just now beginning as the battle of the bands shifts to a new musical style.
The plane lands and we are assimilated by the light, now becoming part of it, adding our own miniscule notes to the overall musical picture.
Finally, I am home. Or some semblance thereof.
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