Dreams at 35000 Feet
Inside a dream
I awoke
On an empty plane
The seats around me were unoccupied
And no staff pounded the galley
With clinking bottle
Or rattling trolly
The plane still moved
Through the air and outside I could see
A night sky
Of atmospheric distortions
And green-blue nebulae
Exploring I found
The cockpit was as empty
As the soul of an old merchant
Buttons flashed and toggles moved
Of their own violation
I sat in the captain’s seat
And watched as invisible forces flew me
And me alone
On
Through a purple cloud
The plane glided
There were faces in that cloud
Inhuman and unfriendly
The metal and plastic around me shook
With violent paroxysms
Voices flooded the cabin
Haunting voices
Clawing their way into my mind
The words were
Not of my world
Alien tongues
But I still understood the evil within them
I took the controls
And despite being untrained
Guided the metal bird
Out of the cloud of faces
Downwards towards the earth
Whichever earth was down there
The crash
When it inevitably came
Was not like in the movies
The plane did not crumple
Or pull apart
And there were no flames
Or explosions
I sat frozen in the captain’s chair
I was the captain now
The captain that sunk the ship
On the runway I had made for myself
In the remoteness of this world
Watching as a creature fat
Squat and bald licked the glass
With a forked black tongue
Something moved in the cabin
Behind me
A big thing
Crashing down the plane
Getting closer
And louder
Beneath my seat was a hatch
I dropped through it
Fell through the air
For what seemed like hours
And landed softly on
A bed of long grass
I searched around me
With baffled eyes
For the creature at the window
Or any other thing
And noticed the plane was gone
Vanished from above my head
Poof
Just like that
The sky beyond
Where my flying carriage should have been
Was normal also
No multi-coloured raincoat of clouds
No faces or voices
Nothing untoward or strange
I glanced to my left
And saw my home
Dark but for a few lights upstairs
My room
With my things
My whole life
And my bed
Where I should have fallen asleep
Rather than out here
On the grass