T-minus One Week.

6:20 pm, and again the sky is liquid fire on the 540 freeway, the sun a molten globe melting out of the halogen-bright immensity.  I watch it in the rear view.  If you or anyone you know has never seen a beautiful sunset, then drive west on 540 between the hours of six o'clock and dark.  Oh yes, you will be traveling along an industrial-asphalt river full of  carbon-monoxide-spewing chug-a-lug machines.  But the sky is painted onto the firmament above.  And if you can manage to tear your eyes from the monotony of the eight lane freeway--car accidents be damned--then you can soar into this neon wonderland on wings of gold.  The longer you look, the better it gets.  So go on.  Forget the concrete world around you, escape from the metal, glass prison of the automobile and burn into that great beyond.

Horrible advice.  Someone will surely die in a blazing ball of wreckage.

But the underbellies of planes twinkle there in the failing light.  The arrivals and departures roaring in-to and out-of the painted sky.  Silver birds making constellations in constant motion.  But they, too, are chug-a-lug machines, humming over the ideal suburban landscapes of North Raleigh.  And I wonder where they are going.

RDU is one of the two international airports in North Carolina.  Just off of 540.  Just off of I-40.  Planes, planes and automobiles.  We guzzle gas like there is no tomorrow.  But tomorrow looms forever closer.  And, though I'm sure everyone has heard plenty about "the end of oil," I wonder how long we really have before air travel as we know it becomes obsolete?  Or if it will at all.

I've heard more and more about an "Aviation Apocalypse" forecasting the end of mass air travel.  And, according to Bradford Plumer, in an article he wrote for the New Republic, this will mean many things to our world which is "increasingly accustomed to its frenetic, globe-trotting pace."

But how relevant will it be to me?  Comes the question from the self-centered arrogant asshole sitting on a strange couch in a strange house with strange dogs.  Yes, how relevant will it be to me?  Perhaps I am part of the last generation that will be able to pack up a backpack after college graduation and trek on over to Europe to ride around in trains and stay in hostels.  The youth must broaden their horizons somehow.  Though these days we are just as likely to go to China or Africa, South America, or--in my case--New Zealand.

And what should we do?  This last generation with wings?  Take the fast track to responsibility, and conserve what we have left.  Abandon the vertical transit system?  It is surely helping to reek havoc on the world's climate.  We do not need airplanes to communicate with the rest of the world.  We are living in the global age.  In the digital age.  We could live vicariously though skype-pen-pals in other nations rather than going to visit these places ourselves.  And should we do this?  Should we become more grounded in our own communities?  Place a greater focus on our neighbors, and being neighborly?  

Yes.  Surely, we should do all of these things.  But if I'm not on that flight in one week, someone else will take my seat.  And that would be a travesty.  So I will fly.  With the time that I have left--the oil-clock ticking--I will fly.  I will guzzle gas with the rest of the lot.  I will see as much of this shrinking world as I can.  And I will become a part of this strange group--a group that we will all be a part of when history looks back at us--a group that took to the air.  That flew over continents and oceans.  A group that traveled for myriad reasons.  For business, for pleasure.  For love.  As fast as fire.  And away we go.

T-minus one week.  And counting.