"CANCELLED FLIGHT" (fiction)

CANCELLED FLIGHT  1/14/19

The two friends had meant to fly together to a conference in another state but arrived at the airport early only to discover that because of the government shut-down, their flight had been cancelled.  No other flights were available.  The distance was too great to drive or take the train.  They took advantage of the airport café to have breakfast and regroup.

"Just when I was congratulating myself on not working for the government," said Adele, as she spread marmalade on her toast, "I discover that a grant for my key project is on indefinite hold until this deadlock is resolved."  

"Won't you take a hit when clients can't pay their bills?"  Daisy knew very well that Adele had a vast cushion of retirement money which she didn't often have to touch because she was single with a modest lifestyle.  Still, she was being a bit more snarky than necessary.  It was spillover from her worry about her husband's book contract, which was not really related to the government at all, but suffered in the general chaos and uncertainty.

Adele took a bite of her toast, which undercut the threat she expressed.  "I wish someone would just go in there and take that coward by the back of his neck and pitch him right on out of Oval Office, out of the White House, out of our lives."

"It appears that politics has invaded our private psychotherapies and showed us that no one lives truly privately and that money . . ."

"Politics IS money."

"Most of my clients are so worried and a few of them are so desperate since they were skating on thin ice anyway, that they can't think straight about their own issues.  Attendance at the groups is much less."

"What I'm seeing is much more suicide ideation."  

The café was busy.  Evidently people were still optimistic about flying and hoped that somehow things would work out, but there were also more people at the bar that looked out on the tarmac than usual.  The big planes weren't moving.

"Actually," said Daisy, slurping her hot coffee which she was taking black to save calories, I don't even think this is about any wall, which is an unrealistic idea at best no matter how much money is involved.  There are too many problematics, like crossing private property, being improperly located miles from the border, the river itself going through inaccessible cliffs.  It's like the screen memories and symbolisms we try to sort out for our clients -- a vivid emotional idea that stands for something else that is hidden."

"Right.  Like the need for total control and constant focus on the person in order to assure him that he even exists.  For a malignant narcissist there is nothing more important than a constant supply of admiration, even if he has to tell them what to say."  

"And it's important that the supposed demand is for something impossible, because if it were magically granted, then the narcissist would have to go to a new demand to keep his personal need satisfied."

"Right." Daisy was using the side of hand to sweep the crumbs together and dump them on her toast plate.  The waiter was slow appearing.  Maybe he was an illegal immigrant and had to make a quick run for it.  "And so we have this shut down, which is totally unjustified, but behind it is the threat of a state of emergency.  But he IS the emergency."

"And behind that, the threat of war and even atomic bombs, which is a two-edged sword, since it's a terrible threat but even he knows -- he MUST know -- that if the country were challenged into non-existence, he goes with it."

"And all the time the real threat to the existence of the country is climate change which means crop and trade chaos, which could mean famine, and disease arising from weakened people."

"Water emergencies from the disappearance of the glaciers that were reservoirs."

"Contaminated air so thick that life is shortened."

"People with no place to take shelter, no access to ordinary meds, preying on each other."

"Right now the pharmaceutical companies are racketeering, exploding prices of common meds like insulin beyond comprehension when the percentage of people with diabetes is growing beyond a third."

"We could go on for quite a while.  It's terrifying."  Adele, giving up on the waiter, went to the supply sideboard and brought back an insulated carafe of coffee.  It was almost full and still more warm than not.  

Daisy put a hand out to wave away more coffee.  "In a way it's almost familiar.  My mother talks about past wars when it looked like all civilization would be destroyed.  And that was in the days when there really WAS civilization -- I mean people had manners and professionals had consciences.  Neanderthals were just fossils instead of inhabiting our genomes, implying all sorts of things about how they got there and what they do and how they all got wiped out."

"Yeah, if we get wiped out there's no new species to replace us."

The women sat in silence, brushing off their bosoms and shaking out their napkins.  The airport was emptying now as the difficulties became known.  Taxis were returning to the curb rank, having transported people in more than one wave.  They began to think about what to do with the rest of the day, having had this little empty space in their work.  No pleasure in thinking about the plight of the nation, but some comfort in sharing friendship.

Daisy broke the silence.  "Do you read about "deep time" and "thick history", the new research results that tell about before there was even a solar system, before the earth went through the transformations and the marvelous beings who occupied the space for so many eons, but disappeared anyway?"

"I do."  Adele paused and took a deep breath.  "I think that all those things, so incomprehensible, are in us now.  The molecules of trilobites and tetrapods have been unzipped, reconstituted, reduced to elements and then reconstituted."

Daisy nodded.  "We're just borrowing time."  They sorted out the money, rose from the table, and went out to share a taxi.