No Step Aft

Through the window, I see block lettering along fourteen slots in the top of the wing which read "No Step Aft". Same wing, same seat, opposite direction. Same person, made different by the hands and heart of an artist.

The late afternoon sun punishes me for leaving, and tries to burn a hole in the back of my right shoulder through the scratched plastic window. I grudgingly close the blinds. It was dark as pitch the first time, and the moon did not bother to seek me out so. The new dim and the hum of the engine behind me lure me into a light sleep.

Eventually, we outrace the sun's wicked beams – I will not meet Icarus today – and I rouse in response to the absence of heat. I slowly lift the blinds and look down upon the earth, and I see a familiar patchwork spread beneath me: lakes, structures, trees. The earth curves ever so gently along the horizon, deceptively infinite.

We begin a subtle descent, and the clouds appear to blow us kisses before they take us in their fleeting embrace. The patches below grow in size and detail: highways, schools, homes, shopping malls, swimming pools. The patchwork's palette has changed from terra cotta to a rainbow of pastels.

I watch the flaps on the wing rise and fall, coaxing Da Vinci's dream. The engine behind me begins to roar, but it does not stir my heart as much as what I see below. Churches, trains, signs, cars, people. Pastels become Crayolas. The surface features continue to grow in size, and their details sharpen and multiply until the once anonymous patches explode into . . . life . . . as the tires touch the tarmac, dancing en pointe while the flaps on the wings strain upwards and the brakes scream in protest – no, we never liked Da Vinci, it was a mistake, we changed our minds – and we conquer our momentum.

As I wait to deplane, I cast one last glance at the wing, and am reminded "No Step Aft". Repeating along its length, because there's no point in repeating across its depth.

I am not the same. There is no going backward; there is only forward. I am exploding into life.

No step aft.