Landing

There was one plane in the sky and people were starting to point at it. Next to me a man said to his son: “Yup, that’s Air Force One. They’ve shut down all other air traffic within twenty miles of here. That’s Air Force One.” How did he know this? How did he know it was twenty miles and why did he say that if he did know? Who shut it down and what was to stop any other piece of metal from launching into the blue void above us?

The plane took a while to land after we had seen it, cutting back in forth in forth in the sky in and out of view, sometimes going behind us but we didn’t turn around to watch it then. We’d been standing in the airport parking lot for hours but the plane with the reason we were here would come and go before we did. The loudspeakers played Eye of the Tiger and seven other songs which I don’t remember on a loop.

When the plane landed Eye of the Tiger stopped and the air traffic controller came over the loudspeakers to inform us that Air Force One had landed. The air traffic control building had a giant American flag hanging from the windows, facing us in the parking lot. They started playing a single patriotic song (had trumpets) on a loop as the landed plane slowly rolled around on the runway and the black and white cars swarmed towards it. People in suits were standing on the other side of the barricade watching and waiting too. There was a helicopter in the sky now.