Today while driving the tractor, I saw a helicopter go by overhead. It had a rope ladder dangling from it. Does every helicopter come with one of them? The way it hung made it seem arbitrary. Like a sweatshirt sleeve pinched in a car door. I did that once with my headphones in the tractor door. Worked like a guillotine. Now I got bluetooth ones. Like most people in most jobs now, I keep one in when it gets repetitive to protect myself.
I saw two teenagers flirting under the awning over the bus stop bench across the field I was tilling. One in hot pink sweatpants twirling their hair. One squeegee’ing the dirt with their sneakers. Mighta been cuter if it weren’t so posed. Although I guess there’s only so many ways a person can stand around. We only got so many shapes.
They didn’t look up though. Even though they were closer to the helicopter than I was when it came and went. Is no one shocked by nothing anymore? Or maybe they both had both headphones in instead of just the usual one?
The more I thought about the rope ladder the more I started to fret.
I stopped the tractor briefly to switch into lower gear so I could stare a bit, while still moving along on my job. At first I just thought it was kind of funny–almost embarrassing–hanging there, like toilet paper on the helicopter’s shoe. But then I thought, What mighta led to its hanging there like that though? And I realized it could’ve only been two things:
Either the ladder 1) came undone, or 2) wasn’t put back.
And if it wasn’t put back, well that could’ve only been for two reasons:
Either 1) it was supposed to be put back and someone forgot to do it, or 2) it wasn’t supposed to be put back, ‘cause it was supposed to be out. ‘Cause something was supposed to be dangling from it.
And if it was supposed to be put out and something was supposed to be dangling from it, then there could’ve only been two reasons why there wasn’t:
Either 1) they hadn’t picked them up yet, or 2) they’d dropped them on their way from here to there.
And lastly, I thought: Either the pilot 1) knows, or 2) doesn’t know. And I just couldn’t decide which of those states of being amounts to something more awful.
And I’m home from work now. And I still can’t.