In 1995 the author is on an aeroplane returning from Toronto to his home in Kelowna. Approaching a stop-over in Saskatoon, the aeroplane descends through a ferocious prairie thunderstorm. As the lightning illuminates the inside of the fuselage and the luggage starts to rattle inside the overhead compartments, the author’s usual laissez-faire attitude towards turbulence drops through the floor, racing straight down to the crops below. Abject panic takes up position in its absence.
Clutching his then girlfriend’s hand as she clutches her crucifix, someone in the rear seats is screaming “we’re all going to die” as the luggage starts to break free.

* * * * * * *

There was a short period a few years ago when the skies were empty of vapour trails and aircraft. During that period I was regularly running along the train tracks which bisect the lower half of Toronto. Running that surprisingly isolated route gave me the feeling of being able to leave the world, that each foot on gravel moved me towards an unknown and uncreated place.
The day the air began to repopulate I felt like the survivor of an apocalypse. As I ran, high above me, the thin, twin clouds of civilization slowly appeared. Humanity had returned and for all my running I had escaped nothing and this was the world I would always know.

* * * * * * *

Recently I’ve been looking up at the lumbering aeroplanes as they line up for approach over the north-end of the city – the suspension of such massive weight at such a seemingly plodding speed is awe-inspiring and not all together convincing. However, the passengers can see the ground and make out the cars and the students below and feel the terminal approach. If they feel terror the fuselage doesn’t show it and the wings stay attached.

I will not argue with Newtonian physics or faith.