A goy graced with ideological facial stubble rises, walks to the front of Class, then screams he’s planning to blow up the plane.
No one’s listening.
No, he insists, you don’t understand, none of you, shema, listen up: I’m strapped with explosives, I’ll blow us all right out of the sky…and still, no one hears, and so he stomps his foot, pulls down the microphone to the PA, feedback — the stewardess takes it from him with a stern reproach, return to seat; he yells even louder, shrieks through an accent who can hope to identify.
I have enough explosives wired on my person to blow up ten aeroplanes, one hundred, I don’t know.
And I won’t hesitate, not for a moment, don’t think I will, and still the talking goes on, a Babel of chatty.
I’m serious, he’s promising he’s serious now…I’m warning you, he warns, I pull this, motioning to a small pin protruding with a wink from his vest, and, honest to God, we’re in serious trouble.
And then one woman, sitting directly in front of his stand in the aisle, there at its head, this passenger whose attention’s flitted in and out of this outburst, insane and as such, ignorable, ignores, too, her husband’s response to one of her questions—Are we there yet? and motions instead to this enraged terrorist, who leans into an audience with her he thinks and, grabbing at his vest, she asks him another: Aren’t you hot in that? like why don’t you take that thing off? and then, without waiting for an answer, drops her hands, returns to her husband, to resume an even earlier discussion pertaining to what.
Okay, he says, one more time…I’m only going to say this one more time, listen up: I’m prepared to blow this aeroplane right out of the sky — if you don’t listen to me, I’ll end it right now, honest, and then when the light flashes on, seatbelts, turbulence, ding, ding, the goy quickly returns to his seat, fuming, and mortified.
Amid the rare silence, a Mister Smith asks loudly for a refill (water, coffee, tea, or disappointment), shakes his mug, plastic, into the aisle, taps it throttle him annoyingly against his tray, which’s in its appropriate upright position.
Here in Class, there are sons of Sanders and Sandermans and Sandermens and Sandersens and Sanfords and Sandfords, too, in this row alone. Up front are all the Arnolds, with the Zimmers down toward the rear. In Rows 1–2, the Abernathy family, with the Bertrams, and the Christians, the Christiansens, the Christiansons, in Row 3 the Donalds, and Elmores, in Rows 4–8 the Hards, and the Hesses; there are whole sections of O’Malleys, O’Nallys, O’Nellys, Spinellis, Tartellis, and Worths. Amid the Sandersons here in Class, there’s a whole family of them, myriad generations like stars or their light: greatgrandfather and mother, grandfather and mother, father and mother, and lastly Mister & Misses Sanderson, who were wed only last night: the sky, like the glass should’ve been but wasn’t, is freshly shattered; this trip’s their honeymoon, though enforced, if required, Misses Sanderson’s first appreciable time spent at the pleasure of her new relatives, the Sanderson-inlaws, and so far she hasn’t spilled anything, so good; let’s hope, we hope, this luck holds.
After the Zwicks, and the Zychs, there’s a vestibule of bathrooms, all currently Occupied, reserved only for the needs of those flying Class — as for the rest, they’ll go where they’re going.
After Class, then, is the section called No Class: there are no seats here and its people, they’re stacked to the top, writhing limbs and sinuous spines — the airing of grievance, the noise: that of a crack or break, a short dry snap; heads peek through holes the span of one life, heads poke through the holes of their mouths voicing death, screams fill the section, and shouts for help, food and water, then a hatch opens a draft and silence and a steward or stewardess who can tell or breathe even throws a mess of water and food out into the mess, then the struggle all over again: these shoes stepping throats to the floor, these hands strangling other hands, teeth gnashing at teeth, women and infants and their fathers, their husbands, turned a cargo of raw, suppurating, unidentifiable flesh; then, it quiets again with the hatch opened a creak, cracked light from the front, and another steward or stewardess throws in more, leftovers from Class, more food and water probably not potable now, then the struggle begins yet again.
Though soon, they’ll reach the Meeting Point…we’re talking the huge illuminated I, the zentrum, the centrum or center, give or take, they’re not sure what to do, what’s expected — where wakefulness is sleep, where sleep is dream, where dream is, forget it, all Under the Sign of the Eigenlicht, the hypnagogic giving way to the hypnopompic, don’t you understand (in Class, they’re popping those suspect pills, spread out scattered on their trays alongside tumblers of water, these medications on prescriptions from physician friends become newly Affiliated, feeling just terrible about this whole situation, I’m sure — tell me, what should I do about it, this isn’t exactly healing a body, it’s more like healing a world) — this is where everything falls into the Other, its other Other…a past, previous incarnations: the fall of the physical into the nonphysical, the idea into the act, the way the spheres merge, sun, then split, moon, then merge again, sun to moon then sun again…in Class cleared, a heap of maps now spread out on their trays, too, though no maps are really necessary, though they’re not forbidden, just not advised, excess, an overpack: after all, it’s not as if they’ll ever be left on their own, to fend for themselves and their lives, without oversight, without guidance. Anyway, they’ve all long memorized the Quarters — they’ve had hours, all day, days; they know what to expect. They’re only touring to confirm their suspicions, only traveling in order to compare their own Real with that of their others, whomever. They trace the land’s imperfections with eyes crucified on their forefingers; pointing some to the left, others to the right, they behold the sky out their windows though the sky is everywhere, too, and everywhere indivisible. Air. Languages over the loudspeaker interrupt one another, repeating, reiterating, arguing then…how an aeroplane traces the arch of the sky, is traced from land to Land in an arch, across the Ocean, then further: they’re lower now, at an elevation incomprehensible now. Pilot speaks garble now. Speed. Height now. Velocity. Over. Local Time now. Temperature. What.