 Skyfaring by Mark van Honecker. Narrated by John Moratus. Here, as everywhere else, it is the same age. In cities, in settlements of mud, light has never had epochs. Near the rusty harbor around Port of Spain, bright suburbs fade into words. Maravel, Diego Martin. The highways long as regrets and steeple so tiny, you couldn't hear their bells. Nor the sharp exclamation of whitewashed minarets from green villages. The lowering window resounds over pages of earth. The cane fields set in stanzas. Skimming over an ochre swamp, like a fast cloud of egrets, are nouns that find their branches as simply as birds. It comes too fast, this shelving sense of home. Canes rushing the wing, a fence. A world that still stands as the trundling tires keep shaking and shaking the heart. Midsummer, Derek Walcott. Author's note. I occasionally struggle to decide which units and terms to use in this book, as aviation itself, though otherwise so globalized, is not always consistent. Heights, altitudes, and flight levels, for example, are enumerated in feet over most, but not all of the world, whether or not the metric system is used by those on the ground below. Winds are usually quoted in knots, but sometimes in meters per second. Visibility in some places is typically quoted in kilometers. In other places, it is quantified in statute, not nautical miles. Though kilograms and metric tons are units of mass, I have referred to them as units of weight and everyday informality that echoes not only our cockpit conversations, but also the fine print of our technical manuals. If you have a favorite photograph from the window seat, please send it along to me via the website skyfaring.com. I would love to see it. London, October 2014. Lift. I've been asleep in a small, windowless room, a room so dark, it's as if I'm below the waterline of a ship. My head is near the wall. Through the wall comes the sound of steady rushing, the sense of numberless particles slipping past as water rounds a stone in a str- Sample complete. Ready to continue?