After the plane went down

Was it a comfort, or a disaster, the trivial nature of one human life? It was after they’d been recovered from the water that H and Lauren began to talk. They were riding together in a rescue helicopter, blades slicing the air like a great ball of angry samurai.

                His first e-mail to her was sent three days after he’d reached Carolina.

                The trees here grow closer to the freeway than anything I’ve ever seen. Out west, we have these great green bushes that line the highways and then, unobscured views of foothills or mountains. You are always aware that you are in a valley. Here, without realizing it, these people are all living in a forest. In a strange way it’s easy to imagine what this place must have been like before anyone lived here—great swaths of dense forest. Out west, you are always aware of the space, the grandeur of things. I can see why they built cities so densely out here. It reflects the landscape.

                This is all just a weird way of saying that I’m mostly happy to be alive. The other day, we stopped to get gas, and as I was standing there, pumping, looking out at the trees and the garbage scuttling along the ground, a thin breeze lifted the hairs on my arm, and I started crying, thinking what a wonder it is to be alive. I say mostly because I also keep having dreams about all the other people on that flight. I remember this woman. She had long, dark hair. It was moving about in the water of its own accord while the rest of her was still, and it made me think of how your fingernails keep growing after you die. And it’s like, this lady’s hair doesn’t know that she’s gone. What a strange thing, right?

                I’m sorry. This is the strangest e-mail I’ve ever sent. I think I should be asking you things like, how is the time going with your boyfriend? Are the two of you finding time to talk? I seem to remember you saying that the two of you loved to talk to each other all night long. Is that really a thing that people do outside of movies? Don’t the two of you get tired? I think I’d tap out at around 2 AM or so. Like, don’t you think that most great philosophers worked during the day? There is this misconception, I think, that philosophy is something that you track down late at night, huddled in your own existential loneliness against the oncoming night, when actually I suspect the best sort of philosophy is that of Socrates, just kind of walking around and basically punching people in the face with deep questions. Because otherwise, it’s just a mind spinning on its own, which is fu-king lonely. Anyhow, I’m lonely, which is part of why I’m writing this. Are you lonely? What do you remember?