Simulation
matt chisholm
November 1997

4 am Tuesday morning X came home from Hong Kong and found a note from Y on the kitchen table. She was tired of living with a man who was never there for her. It wasn't personal, the note said, but Y had to think of herself.

It seemed silly to sleep in that big bed alone. But X fell asleep quickly enough, and the next morning threw away the parched boquet that sat on the kitchen table all night.

The approach to Heathrow was always bleak, but tonight the fog was so thick the tower put X on laser-guided approach. A red beam came up from the runway and met a sensor underneath the nose. Autopilot was doing the rest.

"Want some more coffee?" W got up. X shook his head no. W paused. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." My girlfriend left me last Tuesday. W shut the cockpit door after him. My life has no meaning anymore. It doesn't bother me at all.

The control arm twitched slightly, the computer correcting the flight path. Grey nothingness swirled outside the double thick plexiglass in front of X. X reached forward and gave the control arm a quick slap with the side of his arm. The plane veered sharply to the right. The entire world was on its side. Cold remnants of the morning's coffee dripped over the side of X's cup and made diagonal drips across dials and diodes. The tower radioed. "Flight qqq, this is Heathrow. We've lost you on laserguide. Please reply. Over." W tried to climb out across the side of the cockpit. X reached down and grabbed the ends of his seatbelt and regarded them carefully. X noticed a whine coming from all around, the fuselage's complaint of the stress.

W screamed but X couldn't make out what he was saying. Then W slipped and hit his head on the overhead console. Likely human error, the newspapers read. X prudently fastened his seatbelt when W's unconscious body rolled down and crashed against the back of the seat. 363 dead, debris strewn across 70 acres of British countryside. Front page photo of cockpit in crater, yellow jacketed rescue teams gathering fingers from the dirt.

The control arm twitched slightly, the computer correcting the flight path. Grey nothingness swirled outside the double thick plexiglass in front of X. The plane's great engines hummed. A red light on the console blinked off, and X stared at the dark red plastic cylinder. The radio mouthpiece felt heavy in X's hand. "Heathrow, this is flight qqq. We've lost laserguide. Over."

A moment later the radio crackled. "Flight qqq, this is Heathrow. We have you on radar. Correct to heading 145 mark 023. Repeat 145 mark 023. Over."

X's fingers automatically punched the keypad. 1-4-5-Enter-0-2-3-Enter. The control arm, and the plane with it, was tilting ever so slightly to the left. "Heathrow, this is Flight qqq. We copy. Course correcting now." The fasten seatbelt button made a distant Pong! in the cabin. A red light on the console blinked back on. "Heathrow, this is Flight qqq. We have laserguide. Over."

W slowly swung the cockpit door open, careful not to spill his coffee. He came in and latched it shut behind his back. "Everything alright?"

"Lost laserguide for a moment. We're fine now."