By Mark Abdon
I jolt awake to a syrup-sweet voice over the loudspeaker. My fellow passengers and I rub palms to faces, emerge from a hundred dreams, and blink away the stupor. I check my watch. Close to midnight. I stare dumbly at the small placard directly in front of me, eye-level. Literature only.
“Folks, we have about forty minutes left in our flight, and we’ve got some good news for you,” she begins. There’s a midwestern sincerity in her voice. Maybe we made up lost time and we’re not quite so delayed after all.
“Some of our first-class passengers had asked, so I checked into it.” Her voice exudes a unique kind of joy, known only to Gabriel and others tasked with the annunciation of good news. Her message? “This flight does indeed qualify you for the opportunity to apply for our award-winning AAdvantage® Aviator® Red Mastercard. That’s sixty thousand bonus miles and no annual fee for the first year, and just ninety-nine dollars after that,” gushes the herald, making sure to pitch her voice with an urgency that safely avoids desperation.
Then the soft cerulean lights glow to life overhead like an underwater cave. The aggressive yellow ones follow. I shield my eyes from the brightness with my left hand, smile, and take my book from the mesh seat-back in front of me and resume reading. East of Eden by Steinbeck.
Adam has just arrived in the Salinas Valley, and must inquire about drilling wells from the beloved Samuel Hamilton, resident divination expert. Steinbeck is explaining to his modern readers certain conventions regarding unannounced visits. Conventions that have eroded with the passage of time. Adam has a leg of venison and a clandestine bottle of whiskey in his wagon. It was customary in that day to take some substantial lump of food as a present when you went calling on a man, for you had to stay to dinner unless you wished to insult his house. The gifts of food and drink, then, allow one to accept the offer without fear of imposition. A welcome thoughtfulness. Neighborly concern. Hospitality.
A stewardess – presumably the honey-voiced one of the gospel proclamation – steps methodically down the aisle, one foot in front of the other like a bridesmaid, fanning credit card brochures, a glossy bouquet. This offer is only available in-flight. Then she’s past me.
I get about three paragraphs further and the lights click off again. Resignedly, I replace the bookmark, fold the book shut, and rest it on my lap. I can’t sleep, so I look out the window, out into the night, down at an America that is no longer Adam’s or even Steinbeck’s, a vast sea of black, dotted with golden pinpricks that disappear with the curvature of the earth.
Hailing from Indianapolis, Indiana, Mark Abdon is fairly new to the publication scene. His stories are popping up in places like The Pinch Journal, Catamaran, X-R-A-Y, Chautauqua and others. He is a Professor of English/Writing at Indiana Wesleyan University and reads for Harvard Review. Connect on socials: @markabdonwrites.