The Last Judgement

The front wall of the Sistine Chapel depicts The Last Judgement. Michelangelo shows a clean-shaven, buff Christ (Gyms and spas must abound in Heaven.) directing the risen dead either up to glory or down to be tormented by some seriously nasty-looking, pitchfork-wielding demons. Surprisingly, the disinterred wraiths accept their fate stoically. Shouldn't they exhibit at least some resistance to eternal damnation? What horrifying experience caused them to defer to a slow roast over eternal flames?

That "fate worse than death" might be a transcontinental red-eye flight. Having experienced one last night, a few jabs with a demonic pitchfork doesn't seem so bad. The flight departed Seattle at 10:15 PM and landed in Newark around 6 AM. It was, of course, fully booked. I sat, of course, in the very back row meaning that when the clown seated in front of me reclined his seat, I could not recline mine to regain lost legroom. I was also adjacent to the restrooms so even if I could have somehow contorted my body into a comfortable sleeping position, the rest room door continuously opened and shut all night long and its light streamed out making repose impossible. Also, two restrooms for 150 coach class passengers meant that there was usually someone hopping up an down in the aisle alongside my seat muttering imprecations against those cretins spending the entire flight holed up in the rest room doing God only knows what while they are suffering a physiological crisis.

Food? Fuhgedabatit! Hearty red-eye passengers need no nourishment over an eight hour flight. If we couldn't get food at the one airport restaurant that was open in Seattle before we departed, that's our tough luck. Drinks? At one point, a flight attendant did walk the aisle with cups of water, but he ran out before he made it past row 15 of 30 and never re-appeared. Entertainment? Red-eye flights get The Movies That Time Forgot. My flight featured "Footloose", not the original Kevin Bacon version which wasn't so bad, but a recent re-make starring a guy who is probably working construction now that his cinematic career is at a dead end and one of the "Dancing With the Stars" girls. By the way, bring your own head set because United Airlines charges you $3 for one if the flight attendants remember to come by with them which, of course, they didn't on this Flight of the Damned.

When my personal Judgement Day arrives, I can now face it with the equanimity of Michelangelo's wraiths. I survived a Red-Eye. Nothing fazes me now.