Where It Hurts

How the water arches and sparkles in the sunrise of a new continent, how water streams down the plane's windows, christening an entire aircraft, how stewardesses clap and smile and how the co-pilot comes onto the plane's intercom system and announces how proud he is to have accompanied Captain Vincent MacDonald on his final flight as a pilot, how Vince is a good man who's put in more than forty years with Air Canada, how from here on in the only flyin' Vince is gonna be doin' is down to Puerto Vallarta or, shucks, Las Vegas, with his wife and grandkids. How there's a bottle of champagne waiting in the Pilot's lounge and how Vince is going to have a glass or five even though it's 6:30 in the morning, Pacific Standard Time. How by then everyone on that massive Boeing 747 is clapping along with the pretty stewardesses, a few voices calling congratulations Vince, congratulations man.

Before that flight back to Vancouver from Sydney, I had never held a man as he died.

As he pissed himself lying spread out on the floor of the airport, his wife screaming, screaming hang on Murray, hang on Murray, oh god someone help, hang on Murray.

I did not mean to hold Murray as he died.

From Where It Hurts by Sarah de Leeuw 2017. Published by NeWest Press.