Читать книгу Are We There Yet? - Дэвид Левитан, David Levithan, Рэйчел Кон - Страница 15

ELIJAH TRIES TO TRANSLATE THE MUSIC INTO PICTURES. HE TRIES TO translate the music into thoughts. The plane is rising. Elijah is falling. He is seeing himself falling. He is blasting his music and still thinking that the whole concept of flying in an airplane is ridiculous. Like riding an aluminium toilet paper roll into outer space. What was he thinking? The music isn’t translating. New Order cannot give him order. The bizarre love triangle is falling falling falling into the Bermuda Triangle.

Enough. This will have to be enough. The takeoff is almost over. The plane is flying steadily. Elijah inhales. He feels like he’s gone an hour without breathing. Danny hasn’t noticed. Danny is in Guidebook Country. Danny doesn’t think twice about flying. He doesn’t think twice about Elijah, really.

And if the plane were to crash … Elijah thinks about those final seconds. It could be as long as a minute, he’s heard. What would he and Danny have to say to each other? Would everything suddenly be all right? Elijah thinks it might be, and that gives him a strange, momentary hope. Really, Cal would be a better doomsday companion. But Danny might do.

Imagining this scenario makes it OK. Elijah is OK as long as he can picture the wreck.

The captain turns off the fasten-seat-belt light. Danny unfastens his, even though he doesn’t have to get up. Elijah leaves his on.

There is a tap on his shoulder. Not Danny. The other side.

“Excuse me,” the woman next to him is saying. He takes the headphones off his ears, to be polite.

“Oh,” the woman says, “you didn’t have to do that. I have nothing against New Order, but it was getting a little loud, and you said to let you know …” She trails off.

“You like New Order?” Elijah asks.

The conversation begins.