The Language of the Future

Last year, I was on a twin-engine plane coming from Milwaukee to New York City. Just over La Guardia, one of the engines conked out, and we started to drop straight down, flipping over and over. Then the other engine died: and we went completely out of control. New York City started getting taller and taller. A voice came over the intercom and said:

Our pilot has informed us that we are about to attempt a crash landing

Please extinguish all cigarettes. Place your tray tables in their upright, locked position

Your Captain says: Please do not panic

Your Captain says: Place your head in your hands

Captain says: Place your head on your knees

Captain says: Put your hands on your head. Put your hands on your knees! (heh-heh)

This is your Captain

Have you lost your dog?

We are going down

We are all going down, together

As it turned out, we were caught in a downdraft and rammed into a bank. It was, in short, a miracle. But afterwards I was terrified of getting onto planes. The moment I started walking down that aisle, my eyes would clamp shut, and I would fall into a deep, impenetrable sleep

(YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THIS …

YOU DON'T WANT TO BE HERE …

HAVE YOU LOST YOUR DOG?)

Finally, I was able to remain conscious, but I always had to go up to the forward cabin and ask the stewardesses if I could sit next to them: “Hi! Uh, mind if I join you?” They were always rather irritated--”Oh, all right (what a baby)”--and I watched their uniforms crack as we made nervous chitchat

Sometimes even this didn't work, and I'd have to find one of the other passengers to talk to. You can spot these people immediately. There's one on every flight. Someone who's really on _your_ wavelength

I was on a flight from L.A. when I spotted one of them, sitting across the aisle. A girl, about fifteen. And she had this stuffed rabbit set up on her tray table, and she kept arranging and rearranging the rabbit and kind of waving to it: “Hi!”

“Hi there!”

And I decided: This is the one _I_ want to sit next to. So I sat down, and we started to talk, and suddenly I realized she was speaking an entirely different language. Computerese

A kind of high-tech lingo

Everything was circuitry, electronics, switching

If she didn't understand something, it just “didn't scan.”

We talked mostly about her boyfriend. This guy was never in a bad mood. He was in a bad mode

Modey kind of a guy

The romance was apparently kind of rocky, and she kept saying: “Man oh man, you know, like it's so digital!” She just meant the relationship was on again, off again

Always two things switching

Current runs through bodies and then it doesn't

It was a language of sounds, of noise, of switching, of signals

It was the language of the rabbit, the caribou, the penguin, the beaver

A language of the past

Current runs through bodies and then it doesn't

On again

Off again

Always two things switching

One thing instantly replaces another

It was the language of the Future

Put your knees up to your chin

Have you lost your dog?

Put your hands over your eyes

Jump out of the plane

There is no pilot

You are not alone

This is the language of the on-again off-again future

And it is Digital

And I answered the phone and I heard a voice and the voice said:

Please do not hang up

We know who you are

Please do not hang up

We know what you have to say

Please do not hang up

We know what you want

Please do not hang up

We've got your number:

One …

Two …

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