Night Flight

I was on the flight home from Taiwan. I just wanted a cheeseburger,

and to see my wife, and maybe one of the kids. I was looking

out the window longingly and that caught the attention of my

seatmate who said, “Only a few more hours to go,” which was nice.

But, then again, that’s when I noticed that my seatmate was actually

an octopus. Come to think of it, now that I was paying attention, everyone

on the plane, but me, was an octopus. “You’re an octopus,” I said.

“We all are,” he answered, “it’s easier this way to get where we

are going.” “You fly across the ocean?” I asked. He nodded,

“If the fares are good.” He reached a tentacle toward me, “Blurt,”

he offered, “Andy,” I answered grasping a suction cup. “What

brought you to Taiwan?” Blurt asked. “My company sent me over

here to find cheaper nuts and bolts than we have in the states. What

do you do?” I asked. “Well, my mother wanted me to be a doctor,

but you know, octopus, so I mostly just hang around, crush crustaceans,

and enjoy life on the reef.” Just then, the plane hit some turbulence

and started shaking violently, and I hoped that the nuts and bolts

holding it together were not the cheapest ones in the whole world.

The plane jerked up and down, then started rolling side-to-side. I

grabbed my armrests, clenched my face, and tried to breathe. I could

see the heads of octopus sloshing around in the turbulent cabin like

Jell-O plopped out of the mold. Then, just as suddenly as it began,

it stopped. I looked over at Blurt, who was calmly leafing through the

inflight magazine. “That doesn’t bother you?” I asked. “What’s the

worst thing that could happen?’ Blurt answered without looking up.

“Well, for one thing, we could plunge thousands of feet into the ocean.”

He looked over at me and raised his tentacles in a shrug, “I’m an octopus,

we all are. We’re pretty good swimmers, I am told, and we have, what,

maybe five good years in us at the most anyway?” “That makes

sense.” I said. “The whales hate flying too,” Blurt offered, “that’s why

they take the train whenever they can.” I nodded and turned back toward the

window. I was still trying to catch my breath when the realization hit me

that I don’t really care how much nuts and bolts cost. Maybe I should tell

my wife that I am wasting my life and see what happens. Maybe she

would be ok with it, and we could move to some beach town in Florida

and paint shells for tourists. But life gets this momentum to it, and you can’t

get out of it once it gets rolling, any more than you could jump out of a plane

flying over the ocean. How many years are we going to do this? I search

the barren sky over the black Pacific.

“What are you hoping to see out there?” Blurt asked.

“I don’t know, starfish floating past the window would be nice.”

“Well now,” Blurt said, turning a page, “that’s just crazy.”

This poem first appeared in “The Phoenix Literary Journal” Issue 65