The Aeroplane Graveyard

It was in the aeroplane graveyard that I found myself, strung out and crazy while I roamed the aisles infinite of dead flying machines. The sky was so blue that I was afraid it would become an ocean and crash down on top of me, or that all these jet fighters and Boeing bombers and I would fall into it. There was a girl sitting in a cockpit, smoking. I’d never seen her before, but despite the total lack of physical resemblance I knew she was the same girl from Quincko’s party. I waved at her. She waved back.

‘Where am I?’ I yelled up at her. She laughed, flicked her cigarette away and jumped down.

‘How can you not know where you are?’

‘I’m in a bad way.’

‘Fair enough, I suppose. This is the aeroplane graveyard, where all decommissioned aircraft come to rest.’

‘How big is it?’

‘God, I don’t know. I've been trying to find my way out for years now.’

‘Naturally…’

I felt dehydrated and weird. Look around. Nothing but metal wings in all directions as far as the eye can see.

‘Some of them would even still fly, if you fueled them.’

‘I find that disturbing.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they’re still alive. Paralysed. Rotting away and able to do nothing but watch.’

‘You make it sound like they have a soul.’

‘Shit, why not?’

‘I don’t believe in souls.’

‘Neither do I. I don’t have one, you don’t have one, these aeroplanes don’t have one. We’re all on the same level. My existence is worth as much and no more than theirs.’

She crushed her cigarette into the dusty ground and asked me if I played chess. I said yes and followed her to the seven-four-seven she’d converted into a sort of home. The first class cabin was full of books and tables and board games.

‘Who do you normally play against?’

‘People drop by.’

Light streamed in at different angles from every window. The minute hand was slowly running backwards but the hour hand was skipping forward days at a time. We played chess in total silence until she won by sacrificing her queen, both rooks and a bishop.

‘So,’ she said.

‘So.’

All I’d eaten in the last twenty four hours was half a sandwich, and even that sitting in my stomach felt intolerable. My vision was getting blurry. I asked for some water but when the glass was brought out I remembered that, in statistical terms, all water contained some molecules of the same water drunk by Plato, Jesus, Oliver Cromwell. Any water was all water. My blood everyone’s blood.

‘All dust is stardust’ said the girl quietly, staring into the glass.

‘I can’t drink it.’

‘You have to.’

‘I’ll destroy the universe.’

Silence. Then:

‘We should go.’

And we ran away from the first class cabin and between the rows of neatly ordered, rusty aeroplanes, and I hoped that they were just sleeping.