Diary of an artist

The plane rolled luxuriously on its side like a whale. I looked down, across the passengers, but all the windows on the west side had been squinting against the sunset. The water in my plastic cup tilted, almost spilling, and then the plane righted itself.

I hadn’t slept, but I’d kept my neck pillow on because it made me feel like Queen Elizabeth in that painting with the white frilly cuff.
I offered it to the girl next to me.
“Oh, no thanks, they make me look sorta dumb.”

An armada of brains drifted beneath us. They had wispy tops like poached egg trails and the sky above them was the inside of an abalone shell.

I put my forehead against the seat in front of me and rummaged through my bag for a camera, despite knowing I didn’t have one. It was the same optimism that draws me back to my empty fridge every ten minutes.

Clouds have always incited wanderlust in me. They’re like a landscape that travels so I don’t have to, advertising the world to me. I began sketching them as they went by, which gave me about thirty seconds for each tuft. The drawings sucked, but I just needed to do something about how beautiful the sky was.

I was soon interrupted by turbulence. The seat belt sign pinged and the man doing hamstring stretches in the aisle sat down. Had they considered, before human flight was invented, that there were such things as air-quakes? I watched the coastline below seep towards me like a stain. Everything was grey-green now, freckled by dusk lights that made me feel nostalgic, though I was somewhere new.

Soon my window was just a black pill, but I could see vague flickers ahead. The aircraft felt like it was driving down a road with more holes than Swiss cheese. I drank my water so it wouldn’t spill, and then I saw it. It had crept up like a ninja in the dark, but suddenly it throbbed with light below me. The storm was a colossal, electric jellyfish in the sky, but there was no sound. It camouflaged itself in the night again.
I turned to exchange an incredulous glance with my neighbour, who was asleep with her forehead touching the seat behind her and her mouth open. I've seen dead fish look more comfortable.

The mutant popcorn growths glowed again, closer. Bright veins twitched up from it. It was as though the plane trembled in fear. I knew I would want to be woken for this, but that’s because I was raised not to waste anything. Not even sunsets or storms.

I watched it on her behalf, and when we landed, I felt like I’d been peeled.