I FEEL LONELY, TOO.

FRANKLYN HERASME '23

I Love Flying

In the sky I feel free. They say the sky's the limit, but I would love to rise above it. The clouds around me make me feel accompanied. Below me you can only see the shapes. The squared fields, the rectangular of the streets, the zig zags of the rivers. Everything is simpler. Up here I free myself from everything. I free myself from what people expect me to be. I don't have to be that strong man who is only there to provide for his family. I can strip myself of every standard that society expects me to meet. Up here there are no standards. It is a moment for me and no one else. It's just me and my plane. I would love to live here.

Party Night

Typical plastic city. Fake smiles. Fake love. Fake friendships. Fake life. Do I want to go to the party? No. Am I going anyway? Yeah. I'm going because I'm already too involved in this world to get out of it. I put on one of those dresses which you see in the windows of expensive stores. I didn't buy it. I got it from one of the many men who seek to satisfy me. They send me flowers, gifts, and they invite me to parties. They give me all the attention they think will make me happy. But it's not like that. I was invited to the party by one of my friends who really isn't. She doesn't know anything about me and I don't know anything about her. We just appear together in each photo since being seen together helps both of us. Here, who you hang out with has more value than who you are. The party was on the roof of one of those luxurious skyscrapers.

Typical building from which you can see the whole city. The music bouncing off the walls of the place. Important men at every table. Women fighting over who is going to approach each of those important men. Several of these men approach me. They complement me.

"You look beautiful" "You stand out from the rest" "You have something different" After seeing that I'm not interested, they all close with the same sentence. “You should smile more. Nobody wants a woman with an attitude.” Then they leave in search of another lonely woman. And so am I. I feel like I have no one, despite all the attention.

Day of the Accident

I have had a bad feeling since I left the hangar. However, I decided to continue since what I was going to do, I had already done a thousand times. Once my altimeter showed 8,000 feet I thought everything would be fine. A rather naive thought for a person with my experience. The flight started like any other, yet that little voice in my head was screaming at me in the silence that I was making a big mistake. After a while everything changed around me. The clouds went from opening my way to blocking my vision of the outside. As beautiful as the sky can be, it can feel like total hell.

The beeping of alarms rumbles in my eardrums making my concern grow. I don't know where I am or where I'm going. It's impossible for me to communicate with the control tower. It seems to be some kind of electrical storm. I can feel the sweat gliding across my face and back. I don't know how I am able to think about so much and so little at the same time. I think of my family, my daughters, my wife, my friends. All the people who mean something to me. At the same time, I think about nothing. I think about where I am and where I am going and there is nothing. I think about so many things at the same time that I am not able to concentrate and really think about something, much less what to do. The clouds look like cargo trucks pushing my little plane from side to side like a little car. A Mini Cooper or something like that. My blood pressure rises more and more every time I check the only thing that works in this crap, my altimeter, indicating how the altitude decreases. In a second everything changed again.

Plummeting, I break free of the cargo trucks that were playing with me to find myself on my way to an island in the middle of the ocean. I had read about Japanese pilots crashing into enemy ships during wartime. I never thought I would end up in a similar situation. I feel like a meteor falling to Earth about to explode. My control panel and its alarms playing the most out of tune and horrific piece of music in history while tearfully trying to pray what little I remember of the Lord's Prayer. As quick as blinking, once again, I find myself with nothingness. Total darkness.

In My House

I am rarely alone. I always have company. It's strange to feel the same when I have a lot of people around me and when I'm alone. I can be at one of those lavish parties on the yachts of important men. Yachts that they only use a couple of times a year. I can be there, surrounded by people. People who ask me how I'm doing without really wanting to know. People who give me hugs with a pat on the back and nothing else. Fake laughs that muffle unfunny jokes. I could be cornered in my room and feel the same. Crying uncontrollably and feeling the same. I feel like I have no one.

Every real connection I ever had fell victim to my desire to fit in. My desire to be someone important to important men. I never realized that I stopped being someone important to me. My cell phone seems to come to life when it vibrates for all the messages I receive. I feel bad about myself. I'm sorry I failed, but I don't know why. I always did what I had to do to have everything I ever wanted. I have it, but it doesn't satisfy me. Now I have no one to tell all this that happens to me. I think of so many things at once that I am not able to think of anything. I have tried to tell my problems to my fake friends. But they believe that the cure is to go out and meet more fake people, more important men.

I saw news of an airplane pilot who was missing. Some say that he was stranded on an island, others say that he died. I imagine myself in his situation. If he's alive, he'll be alone. He will not feel alone, he will be alone. That makes me appreciate the fake company I have. Although I wonder, is it so different? What difference is there between feeling alone and really being alone? You don't know what to do, you don't have anyone to open up to. Pain eats you through like some kind of disease. It's like playing hot potato as a kid, but you don't have anyone to pass it to. And it burns you, but you don't have anyone to ask for help either. Obviously, I'm in a better position than that plane pilot, but I understand how he feels. I feel lonely, too. Although I will never really know what he feels.

And It Burns

The saltwater destroys my throat. But that's all I have. My plane went down about 300 feet from this island. Incredible the way in which the heavy iron sank into the water like paper. More incredible how I swam here since I only know how to swim well enough not to drown. I don't know anything about surviving in an extreme situation. I slept on the sand, not because I wanted to but because I couldn't take it anymore. I've been eating anything that doesn't look poisonous. But my criteria for choosing is based on how much it looks like what is served on the salad bars that I pass without glancing on my way to the meats at the buffets. It's been a couple of days.

I have no way of knowing anything, everything sank. I only have the watch on my wrist that shows 14:34 pm. Surprisingly the most difficult thing is not surviving. It is assimilating the present. I am alone, I don't feel alone, I am alone. The typical question of: What would you take to a deserted island? A friend. I haven't been here that long but the fact of knowing that it will be like this until they find me or until the worst happens, eats my head. It is true that humans need other humans. A voice, a photo, something. Any kind of proof that we are not the only ones on earth is enough to fill that void. Total loneliness is different from feeling lonely. It is one thing not to have a trustworthy person, someone who is always there for us. Another totally different thing is to feel like the only human on earth. I feel forgotten. I think of my wife, my daughters. I miss them. I never had so much nostalgia for simple moments with my friends. I regret not appreciating simple things like the friendliness of a waitress or small talk in an elevator.