Judy Brown

In Economy’s cramped haul it’s all I ever watch. Our course is laid on screen before me, a dotted line miles wide, plotting the next ten dry-eyed hours. This kind of travel is the loneliest of procedures: solo-piloting a pale track above computer-graphic continents.  Across the aisle a blindfold man dreams, ears cupped to rattling Springsteen.  It’s for me that the names of India’s cities ride at the horizon; that a picture aeroplane hauls its cartoon shadow. Just as I glaze over, the tracking shot pulls back: the round planet is ribboned in aerial desire paths. Our destination blinks and spins like a mandala. Nine hours, eight minutes. Below us, Japan: its wounded power station close to cracking open.