SR-71 Lands

Quietly, in the stillness of the night, the legendary SR-71A Blackbird landed at 03:45 AM PST.  Glowing hot from space radiation, the film takes on a distorted, purple and green color. I joked with the pilot that it made him appear younger. Apparently the plane passed all technical certifications required to fly. "Normally the plane would take several hundred hours to certify. But we streamlined the process recently and dropped it down to 100 hours."

He points to the mask with his finger. "The only problem I had was the ventilation. There was so much goddamn pot smoke I couldn't even see the navigation dials!" he laughed. I looked into his bloodshot eyes. This asshole was higher than a set of giraffe's nuts.

He lit up a joint and walked away. That pungent burnt smell of Cannabis and hash was in the air. Goddamn I wanted one. And now that I think of it, it was strange the bathroom smelled like hash.

I rush out to the central command where that old guy sits. "Hey!" I yell at him."Where are my keys to my plane?" The old guy gets up from his chair and points to the window. Is he crazy? I think to myself. I walk over to the window and look out. There is a wooden panel that stretches from horizon to horizon as far as the eye can see. On it are keys. I look at it and say "Are you fucking kidding me?"

The old man answers. "It takes a bit of time to know which key is the one that will be for you. But don't give up, I know you can do it kiddo" he laughs menacingly.Suddenly, a young woman bursts into the area and runs directly to a single key on the board. To us it looked ordinary, buried under hundreds of similar keys. "Finally" she yelled, leaving quickly. I look at the old man and he shrugs."She was here for 2 years". and goes back to his paper. Grief is like a puzzle that unfolds and introduces more puzzles. They keys are an analogy of the infinite types of grief out there.

It can be beaten back. By using all of my willpower and inner strength, but for a moment. That is all I have asked for.