Lost In New York, parts 4608 - 4611

 4608. Puzzling over meaningless questions, Coromo passed the time waiting for his life to come to an end. In the plane everyone was asleep in odd positions. He looked again at the black mark on the wing and then continued to wonder about astronomy. 

 4609. He saw in his mind a picture of the earth turning on its axis, and then he imagined an earth like a blue and green ping pong ball, moving around a sun that, in his mind, looked like an orange basketball. 

 4610. With the image of the ping-pong ball and the basketball in his mind he posed to himself this question. "If the earth spins around as it moves around the sun, then isn't it, half the time, moving in the opposite direction from which it is actually going."

4611. Since there were no answers to these stupid questions, and he didn't even know how to ask them, he turned again to looking at the burn mark on the wing. The burn mark was now a distinct triangular shape, it was a triangle whose base ran along the rear edge of the wing, and whose apex almost pointed to a rivet on the flap of the wing.

Lost In New York, parts 4604 - 4607

 4604. He considered that the engine was new and so perhaps it was faulty. Thus he reasoned to himself, as the dark spot got very slightly bigger. He began to be certain that he was going to die when the wing melted and fell from the plane. He could see this happening in his mind eye.

 4605. Oddly enough, the prospect of the plane tearing apart as the wing fell away did not cause his any fear. The reality of his impending death produced a philosophic mood. He was thinking about how the plane looked to him to be entirely still, and not moving at all.

 4606. He knew that the aircraft at that moment was moving through the air at five hundred miles an hour. Five hundred seemed like such a strange speed that he could not grasp it. Fifty miles an hour he could picture, but five hundred he could not.

4607. "I wonder how fast the earth is moving as it spins around on its axis?" he asked himself, but he had no idea. "How fast is the spinning earth moving in its path around the sun." Could it be fifty miles an hour or five hundred, he couldn't even guess.

Lost In New York, parts 4600 - 4603

 4600. He began to look at his wristwatch again, but it was no use, he was unable to drag his mind and his eyes from the strange dark spot on the plane wing. He imagined he could simply ask about it, but he knew that the answer would be something obvious and silly and he would be made to feel stupid.

 4601. Admit it, how many times in your life have you found that you would prefer death to the prospect of appearing to be foolish?

 4602. Since he was unwilling to ask about the dark spot on the wing, because of the reason mentioned above, he fell to analyzing the problem using his limited knowledge of time, space, and the physics of heat. But since Coromo knew very little about the physics of heat, he did not get very far.

4603. "The plane is going very fast so there must be a tremendous wind blowing past the engine and between the engine and the wing, cooling the thing off," he thought to himself. He looked very intently at the wing and for the life of him he could not imagine that there could be even the slightest breeze outside his window.

Lost In New York, parts 4596 - 4599

 4596. For some reason he could not quite fathom, the wing and the engines and all the rivets were lit by some strange ethereal light coming from he did not know where.

 4597. At about 4 in the morning, when every person was sound asleep in the plane, Coromo noticed an odd thing. Directly above the interior engine, and on the wing, he thought he could see a small dark spot. 

 4598. He looked intently at the dark spot and tried to remember if it had been there all along or was something new. He was like a person looking at their back in the mirror, and asking if the black bump on their skin had been there all along, or if it was something new and dangerous.

 4599. He thought about the engine. The engine looked like the simplest, most benign and reliable object that could ever exist, just a big circle of steel. He knew it must be tremendously hot, but it didn’t look at all hot.

Lost In New York, parts 4592 - 4595

4592. Coromo looked at his wristwatch. It was 6:15 pm. A little later he looked at his watch again and it was still 6:15. Between 6:15 and 6:16, he looked at his watch ten times.  Later he took a break from looking at his watch and began to look out the window.

4593. His seat was directly over the wing and he could see the shape of the two engines. He looked intently at the flaps. The flaps moved a little every once in a while. He was surprised to see that the wing was bolted together with rivets. 

 4594. There were a great many rivets every little distance and he started to count them but lost track and returned to looking at his wristwatch again every few seconds.

 4595. The sun went down and the sky became midnight blue. After a while the sky became jet-black. He continued to count the rivets, and look at his watch, and in that way several hours went by. Everybody fell asleep. Only Coromo was awake.

Lost In New York, parts 4588 - 4591

 4588. The cloth of the seats had the smell you always find in new cars. The upholstery was a thick plush nap wonderful to the touch. Outside it was a warm September day, with occasional clouds.

 4589. Everything seemed to be conspiring to make Coromo's first journey a perfect experience, full of perfect moments. The beauty of the plane, and the perfection of the view out of his window did a great deal to calm Coromo's anxiety.

 4590. The craft taxied out to it takeoff position on the runway, and the engines began to roar. Very slightly the thing began to move, and a few seconds later Coromo felt that sensation that you yourself have felt, he felt the back of his seat begin to press against his back.

 4591. He thought those thoughts you also have thought, "this huge thing, as big as a building, weighing so many tons, is going to go up into the sky." The hair on the back of Coromo's neck stood up, and he felt that rush of life there are no words able to express.

Lost In New York, parts 4584 - 4587

 4584. Up until the door is closed you feel that you can somehow make a bolt for it and run back down the gangway, but once they close and lock the door your fate has become sealed. Now there is no escape. The future is planned out all in advance and ready to unfold exactly as in a bad movie. 

 4585. Coromo took his seat, and he held the image of the confident pilot in his mind.  It gave him the courage to manage the full-blown panic that was gripping him. He had a seat by the window. The plane was half empty, so he had the seat all to himself.

 4586. Now we must say something about the plane. The plane had only been in the air once before, it was a brand new craft, just put into service. Ifs first voyage was out from Rome, and now it was to fly to New York, and then back to Milan.

4587. From Milan it would travel back to Rome again. Since it was a new plane, everything was especially clean and perfect looking. There was not a single speck of dirt, or any blemish to the fabric anywhere.