Flying and Falling

I never understood why people kept birds. It felt wrong, seeing those creatures in cages. How can a bird live closed in? I used to dream of freeing all the birds. I explained this to my father at the zoo, as only righteous eight-year-olds can.

“I’ll release all of them and become a hero to the whole animal kingdom!” I exclaimed. To his credit, he didn’t laugh. He just pointed to a group of parrots.

“Where do you think those parrots are from, Leah?” he asked me.

“The forest,” I said, certain. I’d read books, after all.

“Not any forest around here. They’re used to warm climates. What would they do in the winter?” He rested a hand on my back as I turned away.

“I don’t know.” My eyes tightened in frustration. But I did know, and I hated it.

“They won’t make it. Is it okay to let them go, knowing they can’t survive outside?” He gave my shoulder a squeeze, but it didn’t help.

I nodded, hiccupping back tears. Even though I didn’t have the answer, I still hated seeing them kept from the sky.

                                                                                                 ***

Twenty years later, I made two decisions I regretted. One was agreeing to five tequila shots at my best friend’s bachelorette party. The other was wearing a tacky t-shirt claiming I was on Team Bride.

But I didn’t regret him. He was broad with buzzed hair and a strong jaw. With his sleeves rolled up, the edge of a tattoo peeked out. I was content to watch him joking with the bartender, his hazel eyes surrounded by laugh lines. Multiple shots of tequila made my staring obvious.

“Go up and talk to him,” the bride said.

“Oh no no no--” I shook my head. “Tonight’s about you!”

“Do it!!” she yelled. “It’ll be….my wedding present!!!”

I tried to be casual walking up to the bar. But I couldn’t ignore the hoots behind me. So, I sidled up to him and ordered water. Could I get away with a thirty-second conversation?

“Are you going to start a fight?” he said, turning to me.

“What?” I couldn’t believe it would be this easy.

“Well you have a bunch of women staring at you. So either you’re about to start a fight, or they dared you to come talk to me.”

I snorted water out of my nose. “Don’t know. Depends on how I feel when I finish this.”

“How long will that take?”

“How much time you have?”

I woke up the next morning with a splitting headache and his number in my phone.

                                                                                                 ***

In ninth grade biology I read a factoid about Peregrine falcons. They can fly up to 240 miles per hour, killing other birds in mid-air.

I wondered: was that death by falling, or by flying?

                                                                                                 ***

On our second date, we played pool.

“So,” I said, standing up from the table. “When did you decide to become a pilot?”

He laughed.

“Leah, you’ve set a new record.”

“For doing what?”

He turned from the table to look at me. “For taking the longest to ask that question.”

“So what do I get?” I said, grinning.

“You’ll have to wait and see.” His eyes made the promise clear as they roamed my body.

“David, I hate surprises.”

“I think mine can change your mind.”

I enjoyed the surprise, but he didn’t answer my question.

                                                                                                 ***

People always talk about about birds mating for life. Some species do form long-term monogamous bonds. But this choice comes with benefits. They often enjoy expanded territory. Long-term bonds also help them take care of their young.

Peel apart our words, our clothes. Survival is all that’s left.

                                                                                                 ***

It took four more dates and an hour in bed for him to open up.

“So, when did you decide to become a pilot?” I asked, tracing nonsense on his chest. He looked away from me.

“I didn’t tell you?”

“Nope, you distracted me with your pool skills.”

“Just my pool skills?” he asked.

“Stop changing the subject.”

“When I was ten,” he began, “my family flew back to Mexico City. My grandma was sick, and this was the last time we would probably get to see her. My parents gave me the window seat. You know, to distract me. The minute we took off, I loved it. The sound, the speed, the whole world felt brand new. I wanted to stay up there forever. But the flight ended. I came back down into the smog, the noise, the mess of it all. I knew then and there I would do whatever it took to get up in the air.”

“Do you still hate coming down to earth?” I couldn’t help asking, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I wanted to run. I wanted to stay still. I’d known this combo before: it was too late to run. I was already caught.

He kissed me and began working his way down my body. “Depends on where I’m landing.”

                                                                                                 ***

The bird with the shortest bond is the ruby-throated hummingbird. Once the birds have mated, the male leaves.He doesn’t help build the nest. He doesn’t help keep the eggs warm. He definitely doesn’t help raise the chicks.

There must be an evolutionary benefit to leaving.

                                                                                                 ***

Three weeks later, he had to leave; his assignment was changing. He was going to be out west, close to San Diego. As apologetic as he was, I could see the excitement in his eyes. There were new places to see, new skies to explore.

It was a relief, really. I’d started throwing up every morning as accurate as an atomic clock. I took a test, but I already knew what the result was going to be.

So I didn’t groan about tender breasts. I didn’t admit that motherhood terrified me. Saturday morning I kissed him goodbye and went to the clinic, alone.

You can’t fly weighed down with secrets.

Written by: Katie Simpson
Photograph by: Sophie Stuart

Flying

Stale air and the painted face of a weathered stewardess greeted us as we entered the cabin. The inquisitive glares of the first-class passengers came next. One first-class debutant scoffed at my travel pants. My stained, hole-ridden travel sweats are essential for any long flight. Those of you who haven’t flown and those without man tackle may not understand, but there is nothing more frustratingly awkward than being stuck on a five-hour flight, in the middle seat, while wearing jeans and suffering from an inescapable case of scrotum stick. Travel pants make for discreet adjustments – enough said.

Coach. Stale air quickly turned to stale farts as we passed through the aristocratic curtain. The other passengers briefly glanced, as if every tile on a “Guess Who?” board was suddenly flipped up for just a moment. Like the board game characters, most of the passengers were old white folks with strange facial hair, but there was no Maria with a green beret. I’m glad we’re done with berets. I found my way to my seat, 26 B, and I forcefully wedged myself between a Bill and a Claire. The Bill was taking a nap, and the Claire was reading something that old spinsters might read. All signs indicated another lackluster flight, but at least I…

“This is bullshit! I used to blow three, even four guys a flight in my day, and now I can’t even have a god damned cigarette…” the Claire angrily muttered, completely shattering my travel-jaded train of thought. “I’ll tell you, flying used to be magical…”

“Seems like four blowjobs makes most things magical,” I interrupted. And suddenly, flying was exciting again.

“Ha. All things if I’m involved sweety. Joan,” she introduced while extending a trembling grandma paw.

“Hunter,” I replied while shaking said paw. The wrinkled shaker was clammy, and I immediately wanted a napkin or some kind of disinfectant wipe, but I knew she was probably the only one passenger that would have one. “So you used to fly a lot?”

“I was a stewardess,” she began to explain. “I was a stewardess when the title ‘stewardess’ meant something – none of that PC crap back then. Things were different. A man would slap you on the ass after you served him a drink and somehow it was charming. And we could smoke. In my time, this cabin would have been coated with the sweet fragrance of tobacco and scotch before the captain even hit the intercom.”

“God, that sounds perfect. I mean, I get it, not allowing the smoking, but…”

“You get it? Don’t be such a sally. Your generation, always all up in arms. ‘What about the little guy?’ you cry. Well I’ll tell you, he was run down by the real men that were smoking cigarettes and drinking bourbon on their way to the restaurant for a steak that was still kickin’. That’s how it used to be, and now I have to sit here and coddle this pussy generation until I kick it. Oh great, and there’s a black…”

“And I’m gonna stop you on that note,” I quickly interjected while noticing a young Hispanic man looking for his seat. “Anyway Joan, I thought your generation frowned on promiscuity?”

“What? Ha. Oh yes, peaked your interest there…” she began while reaching over to give me one of those comforting grandma knee grabs, “…didn’t I. Well, like I said, flying used to be magical.”

“Please, go on.”

“Ha! No, no. Those days are kind of like Vegas, but let’s just say there were plenty of boys that wanted to stay in Vegas, got me?”

Wait, my grandma was a stewardess. “Well Joan, it sounds like you were a pioneer in your field.”

“Heavens no! We were all doing it, but it was a better time. We had a lot of fun. Fun you couldn’t get away with now”

No, not Grammy. “Yeah, you can’t get away with much up here now.”

Silence. The Bill was snoring up a storm as I sat there, half enjoying the awkward silence and half suffering from thoughts of Grammy in her stewardess days. Awkward silence is only slightly more comfortable than coping with casual racism, but far more comfortable than coping with thoughts of your grandmother turning tricks on a commercial airliner. After a bit, I pushed the attendant button for some snack assistance.

“I’m sorry sir, but no snacks are provided on this flight. I can get you a bag of pretzels, but they’re running $4.50 a bag.”

“$4.50 for fucking pretzels?” Joan belted. “What the hell happened to flying? This used to be a privilege, a luxury, and now you have to fight some ugly-frigid-cunt-bitch ‘flight attendant’ for a bag of pretzels? I swear…”

“Please just go,” I instructed the stewardess. She glared at Joan as she continued to rant, and looked to the front of the cabin. I thought Joan was going to get arrested, and if the stewardess didn’t mistake me for some family relation, she probably would have been. But fortunately, she trotted off as if it never happened. Joan paid no attention – she was knees deep in profane, contemporary-flight-etiquette criticism. “This really pisses you off, huh? I mean, where’s my old-timey lap dance?” She paused mid-rant and smiled.

“You know, it does. When I did this job, I made it my duty to make sure that the flight was a special experience for everyone involved. And that had nothing to do with the sex stuff. Being up here used to be something special. Now it’s routine and tedious. It’s a shame. The things you have to watch society ruin as you age. You’ll know soon enough.”

“I hate smart phones. No one talks anymore.”

“Oh no, you’re in trouble if you’re already noticing it.”

I glanced out the window as we glided over a serene mountainscape. “Well, at least the view is still amazing.”

“Meh, the green used to be greener,” Joan remarked with a smile.

And suddenly, the flight was over.

Written by: Hunter Hirsch
Photograph by: Daniel Vidal

Korean 28

“I’ve been dreaming about planes.” Ellen-Teacher tells me.

“I know it’s stupid...but...I think I want to be a pilot.”

We’re sitting in one of the bars near Lotte Cinema. The dim one with giant teddy bears in glass cases. The teddy bears aren’t for sale. They aren’t for anything.

Maybe it’s the mutual dissatisfaction with our job or maybe it’s the teddy bears in glass cases that make me encourage her.

“You should take flying lessons.”

Ellen-Teacher slides her glass of Hite closer and glances around before taking out her third Dunhill of the night.

No one’s watching. No one notices the female South Korean lighting another red. Everyone is busy watching themselves, taking selfies, texting, or fixing their makeup. But Ellen-Teacher looks as if her father might pop up at any moment.

“I can’t.” She says.

Ellen-Teacher can’t do a lot of things. If I ask her out for a beer, Ellen-Teacher has been directed to tell me “I can’t.” Director Randy, our boss at the English school, forbade her. He didn’t tell her why. This may also be why Jessica-Teacher answers me in small grunts and glares at me from afar.

Director Randy chose his English-speaking name by naming himself after Randy Rhoads. Sometimes he rollerblades around the carpeted office and once a week he asks me to guess how old I think he is. He’s balding. It’s week 17. Every time he asks, I smile uncomfortably and shrug with false uncertainty.

The first time Ellen-Teacher invited me to get a beer, she told me about this rule. The invite was a pity one. She saw me through my classroom window. It’d been hours of speaking in my well-crafted English slow-tongue. I’d emphasized every R and L ad nauseam to my beginners. I’d made sure my intonation was welcoming and bouncy, like the lovechild of a mid-westerner and a Southern Californian. I’d spent the last few hours of my shift trying to teach English to adolescents who only questioned my importance. “Why we need English?” I didn’t correct their questions. Like a real adult, I told them to ask their parents.

Ellen-Teacher saw me through the glass square in my door using my hand to keep my head from falling on the desk in defeat. Outside, out of Director Randy’s view, she invited me to share our first pitcher.

Ellen-Teacher and I are both 28. I lost two years during my 17-hour flight from the States. In Korea, you’re one from the moment you emerge from your mother. Your birthday means nothing. Forget about it. Your birthday is now the New Year. Everyone’s birthday is the New Year. Back in Buffalo, New York, I was a young 26 but Korean Standard Time declared me 28. I’d missed my chance to join the 27 Club entirely and glided into the not-so-golden age of a Korean 28.

Korean 28, for a woman, means marriage with kids on the way. Korean 28 does not mean teaching over-privileged Korean students English. That’s the equivalent of a spinster. I might as well resign to a life of lonely Sundays where I watch infomercials as if they are real television programs and start calling product helplines just to hear another person’s voice.

I learned my status as a spinster from every conversation with every South Korean cabbie ever.

The driver looks in his rearview and asks where I am from.

“Where are you from?”

“New York.”

The driver assumes that “New York” means the city and makes weird shout-outs. He lists the things he knows and thinks about the city, each its own exclamation or statement:

“New York!”

“Big Apple!”

“Time Square!”

“Very many people.”

I nod in agreement as these are also my thoughts on New York. We nod at each other until there are no more nods. When the nod-off ends, the driver asks how old I am.

“26.”

“Married?”

Horizontal nod.

“Boyfriend?”

Another horizontal nod.

I can see his scrunched brow in the rearview. He retires to a disappointed silence. I want to add another detail about New York with an exclamation point at the end.I want to say anything to take us back to when he was excited to know me. But his silence is a strong one, a finite one.

Ellen-Teacher isn’t married either and she doesn’t have a boyfriend. Ellen-Teacher's first name is not Ellen and her last name is not Teacher. Euna chose “Ellen” as her teacher name. My teacher name is Letia because that is my birth name. When Euna is asked why she chose the name “Ellen”, a shrug is the reason. Like me, she is confused as to how she wound up teaching English to the over-privileged kids of her country.

Ellen-Teacher lives with her parents. Ellen-Teacher had a brother. He left Mokpo to live in a bigger city. Their parents disapproved. He bought a motorcycle. Their parents disapproved. Ellen-Teacher’s brother died in a motorcycle accident.

There is little hope of Ellen-Teacher flying anywhere.

And though we both know this, that we’re a couple of Korean 28s and that it feels too late, Ellen-Teacher continues to dream of planes.

“You could take lessons.” I suggest again.

After all, Amelia Earhart’s legacy was of trying.

“Do they have flying lessons here?”

She tells me they do, she explains the expenses a little, and ends her last sentence with a but.

Even Amelia got lost.

After Ellen-Teacher’s pack of Dunhills is lighter and we’ve drained enough pitchers to find our lives laughable-laughable instead of pathetically-laughable, we part ways for the weekend.

Ellen-Teacher goes home. A hallway away from her parents, she lays her head down and dreams the same dream again. The one where she is flying above us all, wearing an Amelia Earhart leather aviator helmet, and watching the world below move on.

Written by: Tia Brown
Photograph by: Emily Blincoe

The Thing About Flying

So where are you going? Are you going to New York? California? Asia? Africa? Are you going to float down the Seine? Did you just see Before Sunset and now you simply have to take a trip to the old world?

Are you ready for the food? Airplane food is awful unless you’re first class. Are you first class? If so, what’s it like up there? You can recline all the way back, right? Seriously? All the way? I heard they give you an iPad to watch movies on? Any movie you want? You’re not stuck watching the latest Channing Tatum movie with the rest of us?

Now be honest, are you nervous when you see someone of Arab descent on your plane? What does this say about you? Do you go out of your way to NOT feel anything about it? Is that even possible? Do you judge people that DO admit to being nervous about it? Do you think they’re close-minded, or racist, or hillbilly? All of the above? Do other Arab people get nervous when THEY see Arab people boarding their plane? Is it only the white person guilt? Or is it guilt at all? Maybe it’s just being cognizant of the situation. Maybe it’s just being aware. Maybe we can’t stop it even if we try because we watch CNN or MSNBC or FOX NEWS (But never all three) and we’ve all watched that footage, the footage you don’t talk about, footage that is the hardest footage to watch in the whole world. Every single time you see a plane you think about it. The two things are forever linked, stuck together by the cement glue of mankind’s wickedness.

But what are you going to do, right? You can’t drive to the Bahamas. Be realistic. You’re going to have to get on that plane. You’re going to have to get up around 3:30AM and sit through security and then you’ll probably be selected at one time or another and then you’ll be embarrassed and nervous as TSA Brenda gropes you and tells you to take off your belt. Nervous? Why? I don’t know! It’s not like you have anything to hide, right? But what about that little bit of weed you once carried in your backpack during a camping trip? The backpack Brenda is currently digging through. What if a little of that weed fell out of that shitty Tupperware container and it’s sitting in the bottom of your backpack, mixed among lint, a few coins and a broken pen? Goddamnit, they’re really digging through your bag. They’ve taken out your book. They’ve taken out your notebook. THEY’RE LEAFING THROUGH YOUR NOTEBOOK?!?! You make a joke that the only thing they’re going to find in there is poorly constructed short stories, but they look at you like you’re not supposed to speak and you just broke the golden goddamn rule, so they search more frantically and somehow through this whole thing you’ve decided that you do in fact have something to hide. They’ve turned you guilty.

So finally you put your shoes and belt and jacket and hat back on and you promise yourself you’ll never again wear cowboy boots to the airport regardless of how cool you think it makes you look. You take a deep breath and you find the departures board and you need food but FUCK ME THE PLANE IS DELAYED.

FUCK. ME. THE. PLANE. IS. THREE. FUCKING. HOURS. LATE.

You take another deep breath and tell yourself you’re going to get through this. Not for one moment do you forget that you’ve paid $500 for this experience. This is like riding the world’s worst and most expensive rollercoaster. You find your gate and then you learn your fate. You ask Rhonda at the desk why the plane is three hours behind. She tells you it’s actually five hours behind, they just haven’t updated the big board. So you ask why the flight is five hours late. Rhonda curtly tells you that the plane you’re flying on is coming from Seattle. From Seattle it will land here and then from here it will go to Miami and then of course down to the Bahamas. Then she says that the plane has not yet arrived in Seattle. Your face must be doing something strange because Rhonda kind of grimaces and then the bitch actually smiles. So Rhonda, you ask, when does the plane get to Seattle? She says she doesn’t know, the system doesn’t tell her that much. There’s a big fat fucking blind spot in the system and your plane is somewhere in that grey area, like the goddamn Bermuda triangle. You literally say the words, “This is not fair,” and of course there’s a tone because Rhonda looks at you like you’re a fucking child and that phrase means absolutely nothing in the adult English language. That phrase lost its power after your tenth birthday party at putt-putt. You try to remember the last time you had a good cry, just really let it out.

So after three hours and two ten-dollar tacos that are so bad you have to throw the second one out after one bite, you head to the bookstore. You end up buying the new Dan Brown book for a small fortune even though you loathe Dan Brown AND his buddy Robert Langdon. Something has happened to you in this airport, you’ve turned into this walking, crying, bearded baby that spends too much money and gives zero fucks. You believe you dodged a bullet by not walking out with 50 Shades of Grey. You’ve lost total control.

Finally, you’re up and waiting. Group 2. You foolishly think this means you’re the second group to board, however you quickly learn it’s actually eighth to board after first class, rewards members, military people, old people, disabled people, people with babies, people with only one bag, and then finally, Group 2. You have to beast through the loitering Group 3 and Group 4 people, bumping into them, and they look at you with angry eyes because they know and you know that you’re going to take their space in the overhead bins. You smile.

Now you’re in the plane, in your seat. You think you’re all set. You’ve got a phone that’s dead, you’ve got a computer that you can’t open, you’ve got a Dan Brown book that you’re going to have to hate-read to get through. Eventually, you’ll get to the Bahamas and the beach and the fruity drinks and the sunburn. But first, a woman sits next to you. A big woman. A woman that looks at you and smiles and then says exactly what you thought she was going to say. She tells you that you remind her of her son. You smile, put on your headphones that are connected to your dead cell, and lean back and close your eyes. You think you’re safe until she taps on you on the shoulder and kind of leans in and asks the stupidest fucking question anyone has ever asked on a plane, and it’s worse because you knew it was coming.

She smiles, she leans, and she asks, “So… where are you going?”

Photograph By: Emily Blincoe
Written By: Logan Theissen