The One Moment I Lived

It beats me to see how one can sleep during a flight. To me, it is one of the best experiences one can live to see; a privilege of being a human. On board flight 676 from DFW to Orlando, Florida, this thought passed my mind. One moment, I looked out of the window, the other moment, I turned back to see people dozing.

In the wake of the impending hurricane Gustav, the flight cruised over the calm clouds revealing the thin violet-blue bubble below, through which I could see the civilization settled within their many boxed shelters and elaborate roads snaking throughout. In the twilight, the nature was displaying its inescapable magnificence.

Looking up straight ahead was our very sun, peeping from behind seemingly unoccupied clouds, casting brilliant rays of light, displaying its dazzling and golden presence. It was the ruler of this place; glorious. Just at a tilt of vision through the bubble to the land below, on the right, I beheld a thousand tiny specks of lights, being put on by people welcoming the nightfall. One the left, everything was still well lit by the sunshine. Yet, it was so much more bright up here over the clouds. It was an unforgettable moment where the elements of light were displaying all the moods of a day, bright, twilight, and dark – All in the same view out of the little window of the dutiful air plane.

Unpretentious seemed the calm of nature, as it was just a matter of time when its many conspiracies would be unleashed somewhere over the horizon. But right then, it was hard to comprehend the fullness of the wrath this calmness could bring upon. The ones below seemed yet so feeble, awaiting the inevitable, growing old and anxious with every beat of heart, and every swing of pendulum, being prepared.

Wonder what it was doing at such an unearthly place – that one gust of wind that hit our plane. Turbulence. I came out of my trance and turned lazily away from the window. Only a few souls awake, rest were still oblivious of the existence outside. Perhaps they were scared to look out, maybe they were too bored looking at the same thing over and over again, or perhaps there was a long night awaiting them. I would never know which way they went, but I had devoured the moment, becoming one of the few, who had met the sun, the sky, the land, the light, from that very place in the sky, from that window, on that day, in that hour, in that very fraction.

Never ever will that moment be repeated till eternity, for the clouds would have marched ahead with its brethrens-of-that-day scattered all over the unknown, my fellow passengers changed, the same window seat with stained glass lost, the flight routes changed, or even my own youth, lost in time. That moment will never come to exist ever again.

I’m thankful that I was awake, for the rendezvous with the beauty outside will live for ever in the depths of my heart...