memorable flights on aeroplanes and through other planes

the first part is blurry, like the view from underwater, while glancing up at the moon: walking to the hospital at 3 am, a consultation with sad and idiotic doctors in a room that shut out the holy light of early autumn, the truck waiting for me in the parking lot. then, the decision to race to the aeroplane, just before it sealed itself in anticipation of an encounter with the limitless sky. the mountains of salt lake city looked vaguely familiar and the air was cold as i breathed dust into a payphone, only to say that i was going, anyway.
at the airport in san francisco i wandered around for three hours looking for a coarse temple to pray in, a place to stop and to carve meaning out of the wooden stick that had wrapped itself around my head. that head prayed for the spirit of tender mercy to stop haunting me, to come to my aid, instead. in a forgotten corner there was a christian science reading room. i spent an hour leafing through different books in those shuttered quarters, letting the names of all the gods slip through my lips while clocks clicked and did dances in the corridors that led to an imagined freedom. and as my portion of the earth tilted away from the sun, i rose into the air, accompanied by television monitors embedded in the seat-backs and sari-clad attendants bearing the gift of rehydrated and irradiated food.
sometime, in the middle of the night, in the midst of a passage across a body of water too large to really contemplate (except for my belief that it too, was stormy) i stopped and wandered around a city lit in signs which bore no meaning, other than strangeness and the geometry of unknown symbols. after an hour, i seemed to grow wings again and the monitors played video games and i tumbled toward a gleaming island made of steel and fast food, where i would finally sleep, under a table, by a museum that glorified fornication, smoking and the future.
in the morning a man wearing a cowboy hat reminded me that my journey was meant to continue. he lead me past an a & w rootbeer stand to a place where others were gathered, reattaching their wings and looking heavenward.
dhaka was shrouded in palms and unbearably hot. the other passengers waved magazines in eachother's faces and the man in the cowboy hat laughed as he exited the aeroplane.
an hour later and in the air again, headed westward, i noticed how the mountains rose up and how they were giants, covered in dirt and snow and trees, looming and gazing down at my clumsy progress while joni mitchell played through the speakers above my head.
a young and awkward american woman was sitting next to me. she was wearing a burgundy, velvety skirt, matching vest and sandals. as we landed, she said this to me: kathmandu.