Cloud Skating
N30°0.49′ W135°57.30′
0230 ZULU
Darkness rolls upwards from the horizon, like a wave rising up from the ocean. The actual ocean, 41,000 feet below us, is out of sight, hidden by several layers of clouds. In the far distance, out my side window, the end of the wave of black narrows to a vanishing point as it drops around the curve of the earth. Across the cockpit, the Captain reaches up and dims the overhead lights to match the changing light. I do the same with the lighting on my side of the cockpit. And then with no other pressing duties, I lean forward and watch the advancing night.
Outside, the pale sky above the crest of the wave is unblemished, save for a slight deepening in color just where it disappears out of view above our heads. Somewhere behind us, the sun is now fully over the horizon, and the orb’s rays are painting cerulean highlights across the world’s biggest canvas. Faint orange and gold splashes play in the ether beyond our right wing, where the darkness starts and today’s light ends.
The daylight hours of this flight have gone smoothly. Earlier, we chased another plane’s contrails eastward. While eating a late lunch from my cooler, I watched the dual columns of moisture spin and tumble as they drifted downward through the thin air. The plane itself faded in and out of sight in the haze of the atmosphere—sometimes nothing more than a speck on the glass of the windshield, and sometimes a distinct shape floating in the distance ahead of us. After several hundred miles of leading us eastward, they turned slightly to the left, aiming for a more northerly landfall, leaving us alone in our world.
In our solitary bubble of space, the daylight glared and reflected off the hard surfaces of the cockpit, even with the sunshades pulled down across the windows. The captain seemed unaffected though, staring into the distance, marking time’s passage with sips from his can of Diet Coke. He’s now a short timer, with just under eight months until he reaches the industry’s mandatory retirement age of 65. I wondered what he was thinking about but decided not to intrude. Silence can sometimes be hard to find in the idle stillness between “here” and “there,” and I didn’t want to be the one who breaks it.
Now, with the veil of night lifting higher and higher across the sky, we push onward, still alone, save for a single contrail that slides along to our right, some six thousand feet below us. In the near darkness the track grows less distinct, repeatedly emerging and disappearing as we trail after it. The solid layer of clouds below colors to shades of gray in the dying light, looking like a sheet of ice across a pond—the contrail becoming an ice skate blade’s gouged track across it. With so many metaphors of what I am looking at rattling around in my head, I lean back in my seat and stare upward at the overhead panel’s comforting glow… until my thoughts slow and I lean forward once more and gaze out towards tomorrow.
