The air plane was humming along. The Conneticute river had been left behind. He ask for a glass of orange juice, but the stewardess brought him coke. He forgave her, because of her smile as well as her rump, and offered her a smile in return. He was yawning when something seemed to strike his chest. Even after a cautious feel there was no indication of where the jolt had been. Every time he left Springfield he thought he could leave the past behind, but like the skin on his body, the past events took to the air with him.
Often as he sat in an airplane he fixed his eyes on distant clouds, dreaming of allowing his soul to float, I encumbered, through the air. No airplane, no passengers, no stewardesses... Only a disembodied, wandering soul. Maybe the jolt had been memories of past lives, called back now to his soaring spirit.
Heavenly winds might have been roaring before he emerged, wailing, onto the earth. Clouds might have been shooting by like arrows when, by chance, he dropped onto a piece of land called America. The only major choice to wandering spirit was between heaven and hell, but a physical body had also to consider such troubling details as nationality. Such detail make up what is known as experience, and they will exist forever, after the body itself is gone.
