The Sky Turned Into Skyscrapers.

I have spoken in haste. Yeah so obviously that wasn't my last post. Words are what I know and I can't stop forming them, even if I don't want to anymore. I hoped that would be my last post but no, my mind continues to work. Anyway I thought I'd try something so I can see how what I think is creativity fizzles out and sputters and dies yet again.

The Sky Turned Into Skyscrapers

I don't know where to begin, or if there even is a beginning. But that doesn't make sense, cause all things have to have a beginning, right? I guess if I had to choose one, it'd be this. It seems the least wrong. Sometimes there is no right, only what's least wrong. I digress. I guess it begins like that. I met a girl, and I loved her. I say girl only because in my mind's eye that's who I see, a girl untouched, untainted by life. I wish I could have kept her that way. So sweet and pure and innocent and. She is gone now, both the innocent girl and the woman she became. I loved the woman as keenly as I loved the girl, but I don't know if she knew that. I wish I had a chance to let her know that. I'll never have that chance again. In a way, this isn't my story. It's hers. But it's mine too.

I've not been able to sleep. It's not that I've been plagued by nightmares or even worse, dreams. It's just that I can't. Sleep is good. Every minute you sleep is another minute less to live your life. Or what remains of it. As the seconds tick by you are unaware of the world, and the world of you. Sleep is good. This insomnia, it's like a self-imposed hell, a vigil. Every minute more I spend awake is another minute I spend thinking of her and thinking of what I couldn't do for her and what I didn't do for her and.

I couldn't continue dying like that. And so then, even after she was gone I couldn't stay true to her. I left the home we both shared and knew and loved and.

"Hello sir! Where would you like to go?"
"Away."
"Excellent choice sir! You don't look like you need telling, but!"
"I'm listening."
"The only baggage you can bring, is all that you can't leave behind."

I thought about it for a while, and then I came to the conclusion that,
"That's fine by me. I have left everything behind."

He gave me with a dark smile and a knowing look. As if to say, "No, you haven't."

How could he know? I shrugged and put my palms up in the air and said
"See, I didn't even bring anything. No baggage."

The look and the smile didn't go away, but he shrugged. As if to say, "You may not know it. And you may think I don't know it. But I do. You have brought baggage along."

"Have a nice day sir! Enjoy your trip!"

His grating cheerfulness was all at odds with the expression on his face when it seemed for a moment he could see right through me. The name on his name tag was Charon. I should have been alarmed or at least mildly disturbed, but it didn't matter to me. I had to get on the plane.

I got on. All around me were people buried in their books or the magazine or their screens in front of them. It should have alarmed me or at least occurred to me that I knew all of them. Beside me was my dad and beside him my mom and beside them my brothers and sisters and friends and lovers and. I knew these were the people who were no longer among the living. On the other side was her. Charon was right. I couldn't leave them behind. I couldn't leave her behind. I had brought them along with me.

I said "Hullo."

Or rather, I tried to say hello. They were not the only things I'd brought along. They came with me. My shame and guilt and regret and grief and. I could not speak with them on this plane as I could not speak with them in the real world. It occurred to me then that this was not the real world. But it did not matter to me. I had got on the plane and I had to get to my destination. But it was worse now. It was bad enough when I couldn't see them and I couldn't speak to them. Now I could see them but I still couldn't speak to them. Her. It was much worse. Going down the aisle to the toilet, I saw people from my life that brought back fragments of my life that I told myself I would never forget but I did. But in a sense I never did, or why would they appear here on this plane? People who have never known each other, they were sitting next to each other, all connected by one thing in common. Me. Are these the people whose life I've impacted, or the people who have impacted my life? Is there a difference in the two? Yes there is, and there is sadness in that truth.

Something else connects them. It is seen in their sad faces and their melancholy and their smiles which are the smiles you smile when there is nothing to smile about and. I wondered then if a plane could take off if everyone on it has a heavy heart, the pilot, the flight attendants, the passengers. Would it cross some emotional threshold and weigh the plane down? And the silence. Oh yes, what a heavy silence. I wanted to speak but I could not. They had nothing to say. I wondered then if my face would appear to someone else to be like their faces, sad and melancholy and with a smile which is the smile you smile when there is nothing to smile about. Yes, we are all connected by loss. We are none of us unaffected by it.

I saw out of the window, an incredibly tall, impossibly bright white building. And the plane seemed to be circling it.

"Hello. You're arriving at your destination. That is where you can drop off your baggage. Forever. And move on. You'll have closure, and maybe, dare we say it, peace."

It was Charon's voice, but no longer irritably chirpy. He was in his element, steering the boat, or in this case, my plane. And he was addressing me, there was no "Ladies and gentlemen" and he was addressing my hopes and fears. Dare I hope for closure and peace? Was it right for me to? Would it not be wrong for me to move on from her death? How could I drop off my baggage, if they were the people whom I've cared for and the people who have cared for me? How could I move on and have peace when they were dead?

The white spire no longer seemed so impossibly bright, like the few moments that my doubts assailed me were in fact hundreds upon hundreds of years which had caught up on it. But it seemed to have become taller. Graying and taller, did that mean something?"Yes, this is what you've wanted. You weren't living a life, were you? You were slowly dying. Why? Because of all this baggage. Nobody can live with all this. You have to let go. Does it feel some days like you no longer want to move? That it's too much to ask for to keep walking, to keep putting one foot ahead of the other? You are being weighed down. And now finally, you can cast it all away and live."

Is that what I want? Would I want to live life without all this baggage? Would I be allowed to pick up new pieces of baggage after dropping all these off? Would I..? I didn't know the answer. And then I did. I wanted to live again. Those of us left alive, we are left to suffer hope. The hope that there could be a life to live again. All of a sudden I had that hope.

And then I looked out the window and I saw the plane, all of us, me, we were hurtling towards the building. It was black now. A Stygian black that seemed to absorb even light into its infernal gloom. At the back of my mind I thought, how could I have even for one second mistaken this for dazzling white? It was so clear from the first time I saw it, the darkness, my mind just needed time to grasp it. I needed to hope, for without hope you cannot see the darkness, without hope you cannot define it, just as without expectation there is no failure.

It was right in front of us now. I say us but there was only me. My hopes turned into fears as the sky turned into skyscrapers. We hit. The windows shattered. I heard it but what I heard wasn't the sound of windows, it was the sound of glass hearts cracking. Boom. As the body of the plane plowed through the skyscraper. I heard it but what I heard was the sound that's made when disappointment and regret collide.

Then I thought. I want to go home. Where is home? What is it? Home is where the heart is. Home is where the hurt is. Are they one and the same?

The end.

Well. that took me a really long time to write. I always wanted to write about how the sky turned into skyscrapers. That's a line from Apollo Sunshine's Happening. I think it's a rather poignant expression of how 9/11 must have seemed like from a passenger's point of view. It could also be interpreted as a plane making its descent into a city, with none of the smashing into the skyscrapers. I had always wanted to write it but never expected it to turn out like that. I was thinking of maybe a hopeful story with a tragic ending, but I don't know why it seems to be rather tragic all the way. I think I'm drawing from some very excellent sources. Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close, which reminded me of 9/11 and the story I always wanted to write. And Walk On by U2. I was listening to it and the phrase "The only baggage you can bring, is all that you can't leave behind." struck a note within me, and I decided to use it. Using it meant that I had to start with loss, and the title meant I had to end with loss. So it's a story about losing, I don't know, anything that's dear to you I guess.

The fantastical part about meeting Charon and the people who are lost to him, I think that's Neil Gaiman's influence. Charon is, if I'm not mistaken, the boatman who ferries people into Hades, in greek mythology. I borrowed a line from Death Cab's Title And Registration. The paragraph about sleep was inspired by my brother, who manages to sleep almost 12 hours a day, that lucky duck. I hope you enjoyed it. I quite enjoyed writing it.

It might not be the 6th Burrough but this is my bedtime story for you. I'm sorry I can't come up with anything more hopeful.

Well thank you, reader for reading all the way to the end. I hope it was a good story for you. I'll end here cause my brother is probably almost done with bathing and should want to use his comp. So happy new year, just in case I don't have a chance to say it. And just because you read this doesn't mean you're obliged to give me a present, I'll still love you, whoever you are. But it would be nice. Hah. Then again no, I'm neither good at giving nor receiving presents, sometimes it's hard to keep disappointment off your face isn't it? That's a rather negative ending which I don't want so, HAHA BYE BYE HOPE TO SEE YOU SOON WHOEVER YOU ARE!