Red Trees

J texts me and says we should skip the afternoon lectures because S has a surprise for me. I ask her for details but she wont tell. My ADHD kicks in, i cant stop thinking about the surprise so we play hooky after lunch.

S wont tell me what the surprise is, we drive into a tiny airport and he parks next to what can best be described as a horizontal thermos with wings stuck on it. A small 4 seater plane, or in other words - one of my many nightmares.

My first though is NO WAY. NEVER. Followed by well OK how bad can it be? I have a long history of being fraidy, of heights and sharks and cold induced reynaulds. Disabling fear has never stopped me from scuba diving surfing skiing and it is unlikely to stop me from flying on this rickety craft either. I am too greedy.

Before i can change my mind we take off. Its autumn and from this distance the trees look like a bunch of strange red cabbages, interspersed with the occasional yellow and green ones. Like most people i have seen trees before but never quite like this. This is generally what salad looks like. Close up.

I am quite taken by the unexpected novelty of autumn trees but i suppose this is also my way of not looking inside the plane. This plane looks earily like the ones in my dreams. If this had been a dream we would have flown too close to the sun and the wings would have fallen off.

We have malfunctioning head phones so we can communicate over the drone of the spit and paper engines. ABBA is playing off the Ipod, they can not hope to compete. J is drowning them out with her version. Somehow i can still hear this weird clanking creaking whiny noise. Is it the engine? the seats? the insecurely latched door ? Whatever it is i hate it and its making me nervous so i look out at the trees again like a 2year old being placated by a doll.

I must have look pretty relaxed because S turns to me and explains a whole lot of aeronautical jargon thats wasted on me because i dont care and cant hear him. Apparently he is bragging about mastering the falling leaf turn (i think thats what its called) and before i can shriek to stop him he says "watch this".

The falling leaf turn is a side to side spiral as you circle downwards. I didnt really appreciate all of it. Like horror movies and roller coasters , the falling leaf trick experiance is heavily neutralised when you close your eyes. Unfortunatelty this also takes away the whole point of it.

I was furious for a few minutes at my friend, but immediately after i was furious at myself. How often am i going to fly up to the sun in a sardine can? There I was plummeting to the red cabbaged ground in a free fall with the sky twirling all round me ....the fall of a lifetime.....

.... and i missed it.