The spot he runs from, unruffled, undisturbed, lies warming, sleeping in the sun. The wrecks don’t hit that spot. They hit him, running.
The world that was not his has folded darkened crumpled wings of death around him.
[HIGH FIGHT]
One of the briefest and most amusing family fights I have ever listened in on occurred in an airplane. I was flying its owner and his wife to the coast.
We came in over the Mohave Desert, crossed the mountains at the desert’s western edge, and started out over the valley, where I knew Los Angeles lay thirteen thousand feet beneath us. The valley and the ocean beyond were covered with fog, and I could see nothing but the white, billowed stretch of it and the tawny mountains rising out of it behind us.
I spiraled down and went through a hole in the fog near the foot of the mountains. It was lower and thicker underneath than I had hoped. I picked up a railroad and started weaving my way along it into the airport.
The owner of the ship, sitting on my right, was helping me with my map, holding it for me. His wife, sitting behind me, was squirming anxiously in her seat and peering tensely out of the windows through the low mists.
Soon she tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Aren’t we flying awfully low?”
I half turned my head and shouted, “Yes, the ceiling is awfully low.” I wanted to add, “You fool,” but didn’t dare.