{"id":8556,"date":"2022-04-29T11:37:18","date_gmt":"2022-04-29T17:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=8556"},"modified":"2022-04-29T17:26:19","modified_gmt":"2022-04-29T23:26:19","slug":"aerophobia","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=8556","title":{"rendered":"Aerophobia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Evan Vandermeer<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I promised myself
that when this plane lands
I will have something
to show for it, and given
these first rumblings
of high-altitude turbulence\u2014
the seatbelt light
having just lit up like a Christmas tree\u2014
I better hurry
and get something presentable down
before it\u2019s too late. At least\u00a0
I can lose myself (thank you,
little pink pill) in the movie
playing on the back of the headrest
directly in front of me. Without headphones,\u00a0
it\u2019s a largely silent film, largely because\u00a0
I\u2019ve seen it enough
to hear the music and dialogue
in the back of my mind. And now,
the flight attendant wheels up
and offers an array of non-perishable snacks:
pretzels, wafers, or cookies, and like a fool
I choose the pretzels (a sad
last meal), but my wife is kind enough
to offer me one of her cookies, which\u00a0
I eat so quickly in a single bite
she can\u2019t help but comment
on my inability to savor anything
but coffee, the only thing
I\u2019ll slow down to enjoy. Right then\u2014
as if on cue\u2014Will Ferrell\u2019s character
takes his own first sip of that black nectar
and grimaces in pain, almost as if\u00a0
he had swallowed a thumbtack.

<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

EVAN VANDERMEER<\/strong>\u00a0is an emerging writer with published poems in\u00a0Grand Little Things, Analecta, Kingfisher, Modern Haiku, bottle rockets press,\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Wales Haiku Journal<\/em>, and more has been accepted for publication in forthcoming issues of\u00a0McQueen’s Quinterly, hedgerow, Presence<\/em>, and\u00a0contemporary haibun online<\/em>. He will graduate in May 2022 from the MA English program at Indiana University South Bend, where he lives with his wife, Megan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Evan Vandermeer I promised myselfthat when this plane landsI will have somethingto show for it, and giventhese first rumblingsof high-altitude turbulence\u2014the seatbelt lighthaving just lit up like a Christmas tree\u2014I better hurryand get something presentable downbefore it\u2019s too late. At … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":8551,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-8556","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-2e0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8556"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8566,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8556\/revisions\/8566"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}