ISN'T IT PRETTY, TIM? That's what I ask Leary as if he doesn't know the answer. I don't know if I'm going to make it, for the first time in a long time. The pilot cuts the engines for just a second, and as the echo leaves the cabin, faces light up at the drone that replaces the beat of the blades. That's the sound of three hundred thousand howling insects.
Leary: It's a low-moanin', thorough-going, brown tide of a tribe.
Jagger: A sea of human water drops ready to drown us in their good vibrations.
Leary: A good 'n' plenty plenary of plebes betting on a good buzz and a bottle of Stone stew.
Jagger: A squirming epidermis and here comes the mosquito!
I see a flying thing bump up against the pilots windshield and bound down out of sight to plummet to brick-hard earth. There's the first casualty of the day. It's much worse to witness a crow get diced by the blades of a prop of a plane that has moments before emptied me onto the tarmac. As I'm never myself driving, I tend to wash my hands of such drama.