That summer, I was on my way back to Ottawa from Tokyo. After having spent a very long layover in Calgary (I remember it was more than 12 hours), I finally sat on the plane that was going to carry me to Ottawa.
The plane took off at around midnight. As soon as I finished reading through the safety booklet – a practice that I never fail to do -, I fell asleep with my head laid against the small space next to the window. The exhaustion from the first flight and a day in a foreign city had kicked in and I couldn’t resist anymore.
A few hours passed, and I suddenly woke up in the middle of the flight. I turned to the window just to see if there was anything visible. When I looked out of the window, what I saw there was the most surreal thing in the world.
It was just before dawn. In the darkest of dark blue sky, a full moon was pouring the bright silver light on the white waves of clouds below us. There were parts of the clouds that formed a mountain shape, and the whole scenery reminded me of a desert and its waves of sand. Mesmerized, I gazed at the never ending white desert spreading in front of me. I could almost hear the sound of the silver light spilling over the white sand.
I don’t know how long I was in the white desert under the silver light before the golden sunlight caught up with us. At first, it was a hint, then it was a layer. Soon, everywhere was touched by the golden colour of the rising sun. And then all of a sudden, there was no magic anymore. There was no more desert and no more sound of the silver moonlight.
I looked at the familiar white clouds and the blue sky from the window once more before dozing off, trying to remember the world that was there just a moment ago. In the sun light, everything now felt like a dream, though it was a dream that I was never going to forget.