After the aircraft on which I was a passenger had rolled back from the jet bridge, but before it had taken off, so that it was still waiting on the tarmac in a queue of planes that now and then inched forward, as whichever plane had been first began to hasten down the runway and lift into the sky, the woman who was seated beside me, and who'd chatted to me about the destination both of us were headed toward, fell asleep against the window, though she woke when our plane reached the front of the queue and began its own thunderous acceleration, so that she was looking out the window, and was mindful of our surroundings, as the ground and the buildings and the roadways and the vehicles began to appear beneath us, and to recede.