On the Flight to LA

Early this morning I took a flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles. I had a window seat by the emergency exit. I couldn’t see past the wing, so I decided to take a nap. I nestled against the window and fell asleep.

In retrospect, I think what happened was I somehow got my jacket sleeve entangled around the emergency exit’s handle, and with basic sleepy time tossing and turning, I opened the emergency exit and flew out the window. I woke up as I was sailing through the air. I saw the plane off in the distance. The interesting thing is, I felt kind of stupid. That was funny to me because it’s not like I was aware of what I was doing.

So I fell. I passed through a cloud. That was a weird experience because even though I know clouds aren’t solid, I actually had a thought it would hurt upon impact. Then I sailed down past a flock of geese. The best part was seeing the look on the geese faces. I didn’t know birds could be confounded. Then I dropped down past a passing airplane. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look of amazement from a little kid gazing at me through one of the plane’s windows. He waved and I waved back.

I looked down and saw the ground quickly approaching. I thought, “Well, it’s been a good life. I wish it was longer, but you can’t write the ending of your life.” This is when the oddest of odd things happened. A thread from my jacket must have been stuck on the emergency exit doors latch, and it spindled from the plane to me and stopped spindling when it reached the jacket’s double threaded waistband, so I was basically pulled from hitting the ground, and I became a kite behind the plane.

The plane’s flight crew members reeled me in until I back inside the plane. Everyone in the plane was applauding. The flight crew closed the emergency door. I sat back down in my seat. I was happy I survived. It took a while for me to calm down.