Sharp Edges

A long walk around the city and I’m almost home. I haven’t walked the edge off my mood as I’d hoped, I’ve just worn my body down. I take a good look at the sky when I get to the busy corner by the park. There’s a blanket of grey-orange tinted cloud covering the eastern two-thirds of the sky; and there’s a long crack cut through the cloud, north-to-south. The street corner is bright, so I head into the playing field to have a better look.

It’s definitely not natural phenomenon. They aren’t fuzzy organic cloud edges. They’re straight and sharp.

I hear the drone of a plane coming in from the northwest and turn to watch. As the plane plows into the cloud, the cloud dissipates around it, leaving a distinct curving path of black sky. I now understand that the clouds are at the altitude that planes descending into Sea-Tac reach when they’re over Seattle. I watch another plane come in, it slips right through the original path, not disturbing any clouds. Air traffic controllers, I figure, bring planes in along just a small handful of flight paths.

My back is stiffening up and it’s time for me to walk the last three blocks home. I give the flight paths one more look and half-yell, “Blah,” at them. A shooting star falls as if in response to my weak grunt.