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BLACKBOX
A Novel in 840 Chapters

The Troposphere

Five miles high, over the Atlantic. The jet stream pushing east, atmosphere thin, pressure low, the world spinning counterclockwise.

A plane finds a swift westerly and hitches a ride. Five hundred knots. Crossing time zones.

Its name is SA109. Its tail fin is green and so are its passengers. The cabin crew smile but unconvincingly.

The sea, the sky, and the spirit are all black.

Not the flight recorder though. That's orange. There are arrows on the wings pointing to its location. Recording now. One, two, one two.

It is a decisive journey. For me, at least.

I have a little radio with me. I twist the dial trying to find a phone-in, "Flight Fright," or "Funny Phobias." Or even Tommy Tempo's Nite Moods Orchestra. He's a catchy arranger. You can dance all night long with Tommy Tempo. He does a smooth "Don't Fence Me In" by Bing Crosby using a tenor sax for Bing's voice and some clarinets for the Andrews Sisters.

It would be good to have some music now. It's good for keeping the spirits up.

But the plane flies through frequencies so fast I can't find any stations. Either that or it's broken. Or there's something wrong with my ears.

And I am freezing.

And I am light-headed.

And it is very hard to keep a train of thought.

There are stewardesses aboard this plane, and a flight engineer, and a copilot, and a pilot with good teeth and a deep voice.

He is in the toilet. Washing his face, looking at himself in the mirror, he feels old, muttering his thoughts: Not everyone so well. Not everyone so happy. Not everyone so glad.

He feels a sense of relief now and he's counting down the seconds and there are not so many of them now and they get shorter and shorter and he tries to remember, but it's all too late and his uniform's too tight and he smells of sweat, and in his dream he's on his best behavior and he's dancing in a little white suit by a river where it's muddy and he's singing for his parents the song they want to hear and he's not swearing like a bastard now because he doesn't want to upset them and he's trying to make friends with all the other children and he's covering his toys in shit because he's starting to lose hope and it better come soon because he's not as patient as he hoped he was and he's older now and he can't remember numbers and he's frightened that it's going to hurt and so if it isn't quick he may start crying and he's got to stay calm and he's got to bite his tongue and grip his wrist and he's got to remember to smile.

He dries off his face and rejoins his colleagues in the cockpit. And they ask him how he is and he says he's fine. He says he's good.

And there's a passenger on this plane who thinks of herself as a flower on a cherry tree, opening her petals and falling through the sky. Scattering her sweet blossom bravely and beautifully on the ground. She thinks about writing a little poem about it on her drinks napkin, but she hasn't got a pen.

And I thump out a little rhythm. Bump bump bump. Bump bump bump.

But it is an erratic beat. Like my heart. And my head is full of distracting questions. I am wondering how much physical hardship a human body can endure. I am wondering about the effects of oxygen on the function of memory. I'm wondering what sort of lard sea swimmers use to keep warm and where they get it from. I'm wondering if these are really the best circumstances under which to be telling a story.

And we are higher than a mountain and there's no air above us. It's all below us, at ground level, and it's compressed by the atmosphere. And the pressure's one kilo on a square centimeter, but it doesn't bother them there as the blood is thick and it can stand it just fine.

And breathing this air is an air traffic controller who looks at blips. And the blips swim in front of him because he's tired and unhealthy and when he shuts his eyes they're still there, expanding and shrinking and pirouetting under his lids. But today he's not at his screen. He's not in the tower. He's in a field and his feet are wet and there's sick on his shirt and his breath is frosting and he's looking up and waiting and wishing things were different.

And his breath floats upward and he's wondering what has happened to the trade winds. Perhaps they've died. Perhaps he's in the doldrums. He's thinking of dead calm and slow-moving surface winds, Horse Latitudes, above and below the equator, where sailing boats floundered and had to throw precious cargo overboard in an effort to lighten the load. Horses were discarded. Valuable but heavy.

He wonders how they got them over the side. Did they make them jump? Perhaps they were made to walk the plank. Blindfolded. He imagines a slow drifting vessel in a sea of thrashing horses. Crew praying for a wind. Water screeching. Perhaps some of the horses swam after the crawling ship, hoping to get pulled back on board.

He thinks of tragic cargo as he waits and waits.

No light breeze here though. No need to jump ship unless I make the choice myself. I'm in a jet stream. The wind is at my back ...

BLACKBOX
A Novel in 840 Chapters. Copyright © by Nick Walker. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.