Java Prayer

Every time I fly, I pray for a crash. Sitting there at number 3 or 5 or 1 in line for takeoff, the captain’s apathetic voice crackles through the intercom like a fucking five dollar walkie-talkie, barely audible over the idling jets on the wings. I can just make out -

“Flight attendants please take your seats.”

- and they emerge from the rear of the plane, with their bullshit smiles, having just joined in mocking the fat guy in the front of the plane who has already asked if he can have something to eat. One of them looks at him and suppresses a laugh with a reasonably disguised cough. I notice a stain on my tie, and I’m suddenly propelled back to my hotel room, and the violent fucking of the night before. She sounded like an animal who'd carelessly ambled into the street and was hit by a speeding car. Left hand ripping the hair from the back of her head while the right choked her neck coaxing a panicky gurgle of bliss. I pressed the back of her head into my cock while she stared into my eyes. It penetrated her throat with that familiar, tiny pop, and her eyes rolled into stare at her own cerebrum. I saw her mouth filling with my cum again in that darkness. Saw the smile of satisfaction as those opalescent streams of milky soul streaked across her alabaster cheeks, glowing in the dark. I kiss her after. Taste the soft warmth of the only thing I have ever had worth offering. I move a clumsy hand to the night table in search of a cigarette, knocking over one of the ten cups of cold coffee in the room, and pause. She's breathing in short gasps. Shuddering on her back as though the entire world was comprised of that view of the ceiling.

The coffee courses in a slow stream toward the end of the table, and escapes the edge, dripping onto the hunter green olefin. At first a steady flow, but bound for a dwindling drip, smacking the floor in that patting noise of liquid falling onto short polyester fibers. I touch her face. Her lips are still slick. I gently trace the pad of my thumb over them. “I love you so much.” She says. And the air conditioner clicks on and roars to life.

The jets of the plane throttle up. I’m pushed backward into my seat by the unusual force of acceleration. I look to the front of the plane now. The flight attendants seats look safer than mine, but I don’t care. After all, I’m about to die.

The engines cavitate with exploding jet fuel, and the view outside begins to blur in an absurd streak of bad impressionism as the ground falls from beneath me. Another thrust. Downward this time, and then the sensation of being lifted into the sky.

I close my eyes, and imagine a faulty fuel line. I course it’s path to the break, where a spark is waiting to ignite the wing tank. I see hydraulic fluid leaking from a gasket in some imaginary machine, causing a catastrophic failure in flight control. I see a microburst flipping the aircraft at 500 feet, and it’s maddeningly short tumble to earth, blazing an exploding fireball trail through some suburban neighborhood. I pray to nothing.

“Please.” I say. “Let it happen now.”

The aircraft banks sharply to the right. “Let the flaps lock, and send this fucking plane into a glittering streak toward the earth’s core. Let it end now.”

I speak to those I love, and remember their faces. I tell them that I am not afraid. I calmly, and very quietly tell my secrets to the high pitched and steady drone of the muffled fuselage, and prepare to meet my end among the screams of my fellow passengers without a sound. I rip the oxygen mask from the compartment above me and cast it away. I feel the velocity increase. I hear the steadily growing squeal of the turbines as they swallow the forced air. I see a rotating gimble, spinning in all directions.

And just as the plane’s cockpit is crushed into the ground, I open my eyes, four miles above the earth. The beverage trolley is next to my seat. I tilt my head as the goldbricking flight attendant asks me if I would like something to drink.

An eyebrow drifts toward my scalp, and I give her a little smile.

“Coffee, please.”