we're in the air and my stomache is only slightly behind me the roar of the engines washes over me my ears have not yet popped i stare out of the window at the world falling away and i think of how little people are and how big they are each one containing a universe a god, fully-fledged and all-powerful and here i am, transporting mine all the way to the new world through the clouds and beyond the horizon we are now thirty thousand feet away from the human condition although not far enough to escape entirely a tension oozes out so i push my seat back the screams of infants and the farts and sneezes and snores are all muffled in the lowered pressure bad smells are softened and it doesn't matter what the food tastes like we are all equal here, prisoners of fate the next port is inconceivably far away and i wonder what i will do when i get there who i will be, and how i will convince myself and others that i'm still me my cultural backpack weighs...