Sunrise, witnessed from the Skies!

Inky blackness of night and the only thing I see out of the window is a bright pinpoint of light at the helm of the plane’s wing and the flashing beacon of light overhead that outlines the plane’s silhouette momentarily. Above and below is the silence of the heavens, but the sight that caught my breath and almost moved me to tears with its beauty is the array of seven stars of the Great Bear, twinkling brightly right outside my window.

As I write this, the fingers of twilight are stealthily snatching the sky away from the night and the stars do not appear so bright anymore. The dark shadow of the wing is sharply etched against the lighter gray line of the horizon that is slowly widening to become a lighter, brighter sky. I am about to witness my first sunrise from the skies.

So what is a horizon against which the sun can rise, when one is suspended in nothingness over space?

It is an ever expanding, ever lengthening band of light that takes you further and further into its depth. The science of it is suddenly clear to me as I imagine our little plane stepping out of the shadows into a world of light. And as the gray sky above the plane’s wing gradually evolves into blue, my heart beats faster in anticipation of the lightest of all these shades of blue and a band of light which will soon stretch across this strange, endless horizon.

The ribbon of sunlight is at the edge of our horizon now, and the blanket of clouds beneath us can now show the spidery patterns and patches of sunlight that are filtering through…

The old lady to my right doesn’t want me to write anymore, or rather watch anymore. I haven’t let her sleep all night with my continual peeping at the sky outside. I beg her for five more minutes and witness the splendid ascent of the sun, long awaited but glorious as ever.

It’s morning. A morning like every other on planet Earth, yet so different for me in my airplane world.