On my walk, I hear the overhead roar of a passenger jet. I look up, searching the sky ahead of where I triangulate the engine sound is coming from, hoping to spot the jet. All I see is the rough outline of the wings and the fuselage. I'm lucky. My eyes lead to the prize following the aerial wake of the jet's engines.

I watch the passenger jet fly by and guess their flight path. Seattle to Chicago or Spokane to Salt Lake City. I rarely see an eastbound flight. They must be part of the nocturnal sky. Can they see me from up there? As a human in the landscape, I'm invisible to the passengers.

Maybe at the very moment the pilot indicates the cruising altitude and speed with the expected arrival time, some passenger looks up from the morning paper and glances out the window thinking: Oh, look, the Palouse.

A short creative writing exercise inspired by my reading of Paolo Cognetti's 2022 book 'The Lovers'