The Diamond Lane
“IT WAS FIVE HOURS FROM NAIROBI TO CAIRO; FOUR and a half from Cairo to Paris; eight from Paris to New York; five more after that to L.A.
Nairobi to Cairo was a Boeing 737. A bus with wings. A flying, hollowed-out metal hot dog. Mouse and Tony were packed together, rubbing thighs. It was irritating, not erotic. Mouse loathed jet liners. She trusted only bush pilots in prop planes, grizzled, pidgin English-speaking men who could negotiate mountains half-drunk in the dark. Ten minutes after takeof...f she was already homesick for every last one of them.
She spent the flight with her nose plastered against the dingy oval window, keeping the plane in the air. If she looked away for too long a wing might snap off, an engine plunge into the Nile.
This was what happened when you looked away. She had looked away. She had moved away. She never wrote or called.
Mouse and Tony had flown together only twice before. He was also a nervous flier. Mouse couldn’t help wondering why he always resisted the short painless flights around East Africa in conjunction with their films – he would drive, he would take the train, he would argue that the interview, the shot, the location wasn’t really necessary – but was delighted at the prospect of flying five hours to Cairo, four and a half to Paris, eight to New York, and five to Los Angeles.MoreLess
Nairobi to Cairo was a Boeing 737. A bus with wings. A flying, hollowed-out metal hot dog. Mouse and Tony were packed together, rubbing thighs. It was irritating, not erotic. Mouse loathed jet liners. She trusted only bush pilots in prop planes, grizzled, pidgin English-speaking men who could negotiate mountains half-drunk in the dark. Ten minutes after takeof...f she was already homesick for every last one of them.
She spent the flight with her nose plastered against the dingy oval window, keeping the plane in the air. If she looked away for too long a wing might snap off, an engine plunge into the Nile.
This was what happened when you looked away. She had looked away. She had moved away. She never wrote or called.
Mouse and Tony had flown together only twice before. He was also a nervous flier. Mouse couldn’t help wondering why he always resisted the short painless flights around East Africa in conjunction with their films – he would drive, he would take the train, he would argue that the interview, the shot, the location wasn’t really necessary – but was delighted at the prospect of flying five hours to Cairo, four and a half to Paris, eight to New York, and five to Los Angeles.MoreLess
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