Lost In New York, parts 4660 - 4663

 4660. Therefore, finding our friend on the plane in the middle of the night on the day of the lunar eclipse has to be the result of a series of accidents, or perhaps it is the result of Divine guidance.

 4661. If we want to say it is Divine guidance, the first thing we would need to do is establish that Divine guidance exists in the first place. We will set that question aside, forever, and suggest another explanation.

 4662. Perhaps there are forces in the Universe that we are all attuned to without knowing it, and these forces determined that Coromo would be in the right place at the right time to experience the lunar eclipse as an auspicious event in his life. 

 4663. But this explanation has just as many problems as the Divine guidance explanation and we have to dismiss it out of hand as being equally unbelievable, and without foundation.

Lost In New York, parts 4656 - 4659

 4656. The ancients had no doubts about an eclipse. Perhaps they might have been confused by someone saying that a goat's entrails predicted the future, but how could they doubt the significance of the darkening of the sun.

 4657. Predictions and prognostications of the future may come and go, but thunder and lightning, earthquakes, and eclipses are bedrock information from the gods telling men what to do. That is what the ancients believed, and I believe we are all ancients, in our own way.

 4658. We are all ancients in our own way; this might be an explanation of the title of this work, "No Cure For The Medieval Mind." Was the eclipse the night of Coromo's journey, significant in any way? I think so, even though you see me making fun of the idea at the same time.

 4659. The fact that the moon can block out the sun at a particular time, on a given day, can be predicted even centuries in advance. It is an event of absolute mathematical certainty. But Coromo's decision to board the plane that night was the result of an infinite number unpredictable and unexpected happenings.  Therefore….

Lost In New York, parts 4652 - 4655

 4652. Coromo had no reaction at first to this little lecture about the moonlight and the plane. You will realize that what Donna described was really just a sundial, or a moon dial if you prefer, with the tail of the plane acting as the pointer. 

 4653. There is absolutely nothing of any significance to there being an eclipse that night, any more than that one day in the calendar might have a different number than another. A leap year has one extra day, but there can never be anything at all that makes that leap year day different from any other day.

 4354. A day when there is an eclipse is the same as any other, unless of course, you bring your imagination and your superstitious nature to bear on the situation, which is exactly what Coromo did. 

 4355. For our artist friend, on his first trip out of his native village, and his first time in a jet plane, the total eclipse of the moon was a sign that now indeed everything about his life was about to change, and this was very nearly the truth.

Lost In New York, parts 4648 - 4651

4648. What Donna the hostess, said to Coromo the painter. "Tonight, a few hours ago, there was a total eclipse of the moon. At night only the light of the moon illuminates the plane. 

4649. For some time the plane was in total darkness, which hardly ever happens, and then the eclipse ended, and the light of the moon again lighted up the plane.

 

4650. When the moon reappeared it was at a certain angle such that the tip of the vertical tail wing was casting a little shadow on the wing under your window.  

4651. As the moon moved slowly across the night sky, its angle to the wing gradually changed, and more and more shadow appeared. Now the sun will begin to rise, and the dark triangle, and your fears will disappear."

Lost In New York, parts 4544 - 4647

 4644. She said, "I do not know what it is, but I will find out for you." 

 4645. Now passed the longest three minutes in Coromo's life. As those few minutes ticked by, he marveled at the calm slumbers of the sleeping passengers. Of the passengers he was the only one aware of the impending disaster, about to take place as soon as the burn mark completed it path across the body of the wing.

 4646. In the front of the craft a door opened, and Donna reappeared coming down the isle. Her face was a happy and confident face, and all of Coromo's fears fled away in an instant.

 4647. She had a mischievous look about her, as one who will tell a joke they just that moment thought up all on their own, a special joke, just for the occasion.

Lost In New York, parts 4640 - 4643

 4640. The hostess went directly to Coromo's window over the wing. She bent over and put her hand on the thick edge of the window and looked out into the blackness of the night. Down below she observed the wing. The wing of a jet at night, high above the ocean is a terribly serious object. 

 4641. The serious object in question did indeed have a big black area above the engine that could have no possible explanation. The wing of a jet, however, is such an austere object, on which so much depends, that it is almost impossible to doubt its integrity. 

 4642. A wing would almost have to break off of a plane for any ordinary person to lose their faith in it. But the hostess lost her faith, and her heart began throb, and she doubted the integrity of the wing, and the certainty of her own life.

4643. But Donna, her name was Donna, we know this from her name tag, had been flying for two years, and her training, including the directive to never show fear under any circumstances, controlled her reactions.

Lost In New York, parts 4636 - 4639

 4636. The hostess opened her eyes to find Coromo looking at her intently and one second went by.  It is not my job to describe that second, you are going to have to do that for yourself.

 4537. After that never to be forgotten second, she came to her senses, and remembering her occupation, said "What is it Sir, how can I help you." 

 4638. Coromo replied, "I am so sorry to disturb you but, on the wing, outside of my window, over the engine, there is some kind of dark spot, like a burn mark, and it has been getting bigger and bigger and, and…"

 4639. What Coromo expected was that the woman would instantly dismiss his fears and tell him to go back to sleep and not be worrying about things, but just the opposite happened. Her face clouded over, she got up in a hurry, and in too much of a business like manor for Coromo's liking, said, "Show me."

Lost In New York, parts 4632 - 4635

 4632. Besides, as soon as someone told him the third sister had been using him, and did not really love him, he would have not replied, but he would have known for certain that it was not true. He had a memory, he knew what had happened, and he understood how she felt.

 4633. His remembrance of their short affair told him that she loved him truly, and would always love him, so the problem was that she was a coward, unable to face the impossible challenge such a relationship would involve. 

 4634. Still, until the day he flew to New York, he had been unable so shake the conviction that she was destined to share his life. Let's be honest here, Coromo told himself he was on his way to New York to find his paintings, and to advance his career, but he knew he was telling himself a lie.

4644. He believed that by the inevitable machinations of fate, with a little Divine intervention thrown in for good measure, he would somehow manage to reconnect with his lost love. Never mind that he was going to New York, and she lived somewhere in Minnesota, and he did not know even what her last name had been.

Lost In New York, parts 4628 - 4631

 4628. Perhaps the woman Coromo was in love with was already married and happy raising children, probably he would never even see her again. Even if he did see her again she would just be some married woman he knew some time ago, whom he had no right to have an interest in.

 4629. And yet, for all that, what Coromo felt as he looked at the sleeping stewardess was guilt, pure and simple. This was one of those situations where you and I, his friends,would have wanted to sit him down at the dining room table and give him a stern talking to.

 4630. We would say to him, "Listen here Crow, stop wasting your life mooning over a woman who probably never even loved you and was just using you all along." I have neglected to mention that his few friends called him Crow; he did not especially like the name, but he never objected.

4631. If you are intending to give him that advice, you might not even bother. If he had been thirty or forty years old he might have listened, but he was just a little over twenty, it was his first love so it was likely to last twenty years.  

Lost In New York, parts 4624 - 4627

  4624. Her face was like an acorn, in that it was somehow a little wide in the jaw, and the haircut provided the cap of the acorn. Her skin had the redness of deep sleep. I ask you, when is a woman most beautiful? A woman is most beautiful when they are deep asleep, or when they are in a towering and justified rage.

 4625. Poor Coromo, as he knelt there in the dark was dealt a terrible blow by his strange fate. He was overcome by an infinite tenderness for the sleeping stewardess. It was not like physical attraction exactly. The best I can do to describe his feeling is to compare it to the feelings of a father, who tucks in his sleeping daughter.

 4626. You may think that that is all well and good, and that for Coromo to be attracted to the sleeping stewardess was just in the natural order of things but that shows how little you understand our hero. I remind you that two years ago he fell in love with the woman we always called the third sister, the one he went horseback riding with.

 4627. Perhaps you remember his affair with her, and how they corresponded by e-mail for a year. Then the received a note saying she was engaged to a lawyer, and asking him not to write anymore. He did as he was told, and he never wrote to her again, but that woman had been in his mind ever since, and he was faithful his idea of her, and in all this time had never so much as noticed any other woman.

Lost In New York, parts 4620 - 4623

4620. Don't imagine for one second that Coromo was the sort of person that would wake up some unknown sleeping woman in the darkened galley kitchen of an inter-continental flight in the middle of the night. 

4621. He would never dare to do such an obviously improper thing except that everyone's life was in danger and there was no one around to speak to, so he had no choice in the matter. 

4622. Even so, he did not touch her shoulder immediately.  He reached out his hand to wake her but for a long moment he hesitated, unsure if it was an acceptable thing to do, even under the circumstances.

4623. During the moment he crouched there in the dark, uncertain what to do, he was unable to keep from looking carefully at her face. Her head was to the side and her bangs exposed the rough complexion of her forehead. In a fleeting moment Coromo somehow understood the woman’s haircut, and its purpose.

Lost In New York, parts 4616 - 4619

4616. I suppose you are thinking that finally we are going to find out about the black spot on the wing of the plane, but what kind of a writer would I be, if I didn't put that situation off as long as possible. Besides, you know Coromo is going to get to New York, so it can't be anything serious.

4617. The stewardess, asleep on the milk crates is more important than the wing of the plane, so we will have to say a few things about her. The most important thing about her was that she had been asleep, and Coromo woke her up. 

4618. She had been sound asleep for two hours. She was a typical crew person, professionally beautiful and slender, with perfect hair cut with bangs, in a style I believe is called a "pageboy," but I am not sure.

 4619. This cut of her hair was out of fashion, but she chose it for a self-conscious reason, her forehead was full of blemishes, and the bangs covered her imagined faults. She had been lying on her side with her head on one of those small pillows when Coromo gently touched her on the shoulder.

Lost In New York, parts 4612 - 4615

 4612. Finally he set his mind to analyze the burn spot on the wing in an analytical and mathematical way. The burn mark seemed to be covering an area of the wing that extended from the wing's edge, half way to the first rivet of the flap.

 4613. If the burn mark was getting larger, at some point it would reach the rivet and that would confirm, as an observable fact, that something unavoidable and serious was happening.

 4614. It took exactly a half an hour for the burn mark to reach the rivet, but still Coromo did nothing. Yet another fifteen minutes went by, and the rivet also was swallowed up in blackness.

 4615. Reluctantly, Coromo got out of his seat, walked to the back of the plane, and woke one of the hostesses, who was contentedly asleep on two milk crates near the bathrooms. Coromo woke her and said, "Can I ask you a question?"