THE CLOUDS WERE ghost white. No. Wait. Were they grey tinged? Lincoln was guessing. He was middle seat and the eighty-­year-­old (?) lady asleep next to him had pulled the shade halfway down. Couldn’t see much but a dull wing. Wait! A wing tainted with streaks of powdered coal. A grey wing coated in shadow. Riled with…what were those called? Divots? Or was that golf?

Oh, whatever. Why dress it up? It was a wing like every other plane wing that no one would ever care about. But if it failed in any way? Maybe let’s not, when ten miles up. With that pregnant woman across the aisle. The sweet, honeymooning newlyweds in front of him. The bald girl who kept sticking her finger into her doll’s empty eye socket.