Paintings

Young soldiers are making their way through jungles while a camera-crew gives a whispered narration. The TV in the family room is always set to the news channel: always monitoring the war in Vietnam. Then, a break in regular news coverage-an airliner has crashed in Denver while attempting to land in windy conditions. Quietly gasping and shaking her head, my mother steps away from the TV for a moment to answer the telephone. Then comes the wailing, the shrieking, "No! No! No!," the sobbing.
~~~~
I close my eyes and try to get the order right. I never can. Everything that has ever happened in my life runs together like melted paint dripping down a fresh canvas on a hot day. None of the colors match. I reach up and smear them together; first with just one finger, then two; and then I have both hands covered with the ooze and I am smearing the nasty collage into a big, brown swirl. I rub them on my jeans until I am satisfied that no one can see any paint left on my hands.

I open my eyes and my pupils contract in the light. There is a tick crawling up my thigh. I pick it off of my faded jeans and realize I have nowhere to discard of the disgusting bug. Glancing around, I casually lower my hand and flick it like a booger into the aisle. I watch it creep towards the foot of the man two seats ahead and across the aisle from where I sit listening to the wind whistling outside the window. I wonder how the creature came to be crawling on me at this altitude. After all, it has been more than a day since I saw a blade of grass. I imagine someone else flicked it off in the same way I did, and the thing has been crawling around the fuselage for hours or days or even weeks. Maybe it rode in on someone's scalp and was picked off a month ago and has been riding around on various hosts, to various airports, onto various airplanes, and to various destinations before crawling on me; and, now onto the man across the aisle. I muffle a chuckle and lower my face so no one can see me amusing myself... they would think I am daft.

Craning my neck, I turn to get a look out the window but the shade is pulled. I don't dare disturb the sleeping woman in the coveted window seat for fear that she may decide to pick up our previous conversation about her husband, her children, her home, her best recipe, her life... like I care. Oh, I am sure she has a wonderful life; apparently, one that is well-worth talking about. Her gurgling open-mouth breath smells of bourbon as she dozes and I turn away from it. I hate sleeping in public-all those people witnessing my snoring and farting. After all, in five years I could be walking down a city street and someone could stop me and say, "Aren't you that woman who was snoring loudly on the flight from Detroit?" Stranger things have happened, and I can't take the risk.

I lean the seat back a little more and, arching my back for a hard stretch, look up at the ceiling. In a single glance, I take in the small reading light that turns on and off with a push, the panel from which the oxygen mask would drop in case of emergency (God forbid), the row of small lights depicting the internationally understood images of "no smoking" and "fasten seat belts," and the corresponding light that comes on when you press the button to call the attention of the flight attendant. I reach up, twist a small silver cylinder and a blast of cold air hits me in the face. The air has an unrecognizable odor that is anything but pleasant. I turn it away so as not to take a direct hit in the face and wish it was potpourri scented.

My eyes roll back. I wonder who invented those little air vents that twist open or shut and swivel to aim the jet of air directly into or away from the face of the passenger in that seat: undoubtedly, some genius mechanical engineer with a bottle blonde trophy wife, 2.5 children, and a big house on a small lot in the suburbs. I can see the engineer's house. It is identical to his neighbor's, three houses down the block, except for the color of the shutters and the front door. Cleanly etched sidewalks cascade through perfectly groomed lawns, children's voices echo into the dusk as they play soccer in the street until mothers' voices call for supper and bath, and on Saturday morning everyone goes to the park at the end of the subdivision that is aptly named for whatever nature was removed in order to build row after row of neat, clean, identical houses. The paint swirling comes again, erasing the image of the engineer's perfect life, and hear the jet engines cycle down. The landing gear clunks into place and locks beneath the airplane.
~~~~
A small girl runs through an airport corridor looking for her daddy. He is a tall man who wears a uniform with a little gold pin on the hat. She hears her name and sees him smiling at her from down a darkened hall. She runs to him, he scoops her up with a smile and flies her around in a circle before carrying her through a heavy door into bright sunlight. The whine of engines and the smell of jet fuel are thick in the air. She puts her hands over her ears to muffle the noise and buries her face into his shoulder as daddy carries her across the hot tarmac to the foot of the stairs. Up the stairs and into the cockpit; the stewardesses make a fuss over how cute she is. They ask her what she wants to drink then disappear while she follows daddy into the cockpit and he puts down his black flight bag. Suddenly, she is sitting in a seat staring at a confusing array of dials and lights. Daddy is looking over at her smiling from the other pilot's seat, asking her if she likes it. Overwhelmed, she nods but says nothing. The swirling paint comes again.

The bump and squeal of the tires on the runway; the engines in loud reverse; the shuddering fuselage; I open my eyes slowly and look for the traveling tick. It has disappeared; probably up the pant leg of the man two seats ahead and across the aisle. It has become part of his life now. It meets only its own needs void of emotion, and without a sense of chronology. Sometimes riding along on its host and dropping off without ever being discovered; other times, being found out and its trip is cut short. It moves from life to life, changing whoever it touches in ways that are not always apparent. Then, it disappears; like the paintings in my mind that always end in nothing more than a dissociated smudge.