is the narrator. In particular, his beard is something

to speak of. It’s almost as though he doesn’t have a beard,

the way he positions his face. And yet he does.

The boy whose mother secures her oxygen mask first—

we can’t overlook him either. His patience in the face

of danger we could all learn from. Every time I see that,

the mother attending to herself before her child—well,

it just feels wrong. It’s good, for that reason, neither

has a speaking part. Only the bearded man does.

The business traveler, who is animated, doesn’t even have

a mouth. Some, like the floatation-device demonstrator

and her seatmate, appear to be chatting—about what

we can’t hear. The sound might not have been recorded

or it was but cut out later. Or it could be they were mouthing

words, pretending to hold conversation before the emergency.