The plane descended below the clouds and London’s nocturnal lights emerged into view. Winter Wonderland burst with bright colours like a cluster of stars amid the dull yellow and white network criss-crossing the city. Thames cut through like a rift, opaque and obsidian. A dim wave of skyglow radiated up from the city lights like a magnetic pulse to resist the rising of winter stars and the lowering of total darkness, suspending the night in a perpetual and empty dusk. The lights switched on inside the plane and my reflection in the window sharpened. I altered my focus back and forth between my translucent double floating in the air and the buildings rising through it until I was broken from this little trance by a sharp, shooting pain in my ears - this always happened on landing.
Brief Encounter
Wow!