Do not ask for a window seat. You will be given one regardless. The engine a relentless humming, a quiet you learn to live inside. Look down. See the topography of a life you once knewa landscape of forgetting. A patchwork of green and brown stitched together by threads of light. Remember when you could name every street, every river? Now it is all just a map of somewhere else. Someone a few rows ahead is weeping. Do not turn to look. This is a private griefuniversal language. The flight attendants will not bring comfort. They are merely echoes. They will serve you a meal of cold aircrystallized silence. It will taste of opportunity and loss. You will eat every last bite. The man beside you is not reading. His book is open to a blank page. He is rewriting his pasterasing his future. The turbulence will come. It will feel like a hand on your shoulder. A rough but not unkind reminder. That you are suspendedbecoming. Do not fear the landing. There is no runway. Just a field of uncut grass. And the long walkinfinite expanse home.