The pilot has abruptly and completely forgotten how to fly, and is desperate to figure out what's happening to him before anyone else on board notices. "Get me a coffee while you're stretching your legs, will you, Jim?" he bellows tonelessly as his copilot unbuckles himself. His hands tremble as he stretches them over the sickeningly alien panel of flashing lights and impenetrable signals. Nothing, he thinks to himself. I remember nothing. And with this he…

I blame the flight to Ogdensburg. Nothing disastrous happened on the flight itself, but something disastrous definitely happened inside me. Before Ogdensburg, I was a champion flyer. My parents were travelers, for work and for pleasure, and as a small child, I flew with them to London, Vienna, Paris. I can remember peeling back the warm tin foil on meal trays, the different foods tucked into their little compartments, as though made for a child.