Staring vacantly at the clouds on the inflight entertainment's live video feed showing a view from underneath the jet, it suddenly strikes me as entirely appropriate to photograph the screen while dangling from the ceiling like a giant bat. From this proposed vantage point, with my feet wedged into the overhead luggage compartment, hanging upside down, I would see that the clouds appear similar to what they look like when you stare up at them from the ground when lying on your back. I briefly consider that the jet is below the clouds and flying upside down.
This confused musing dissipates, and as we prepare for landing, the camera view switches from looking down towards the creeping earth to looking forward from the front of the cockpit. We land, taxi up to the jet bridge, and slowly begin to stop. As has happened to me once before, we come to a complete halt with the camera pointing directly at a leaking dumpster packed full of garbage. None of my previous actions, or even the oozing dumpster, disturbs the Japan Airlines flight attendant sitting next to me, who is now fastidiously folding her blanket after she nimbly consumed a package of pretzels after napping with her hands precisely folded in her lap. If a jet flight is a series of specific actions carefully executed in a technologically advanced container, then this precision flight has concluded on a different type of vessel, one holding a considerable assortment of disorganized refuse and goo
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