Home Sweet Home
Gerald was coming home, and home was his true love. Seat 46E's porthole teased him as they came ever nearer. He was provided with a small glance at New York City between every two or three clouds. Upon each glance his sensory memory would activate emotions inside him that sang "Home Sweet Home." As the aircraft flew ever onwards Gerald could have sworn he saw a puce-coloured neon letter 'K'. Immediately he could smell the comforting scent of bread baking. He could taste the tower of sandwiched pastrami slathered in seeded mustard. The 'K' he'd seen, could only have belonged to Katz's Delicatessen. It was famous for it's quintessential role in Rob Reiner's film When Harry Met Sally, but also for the culinary standard that it proudly upheld. Gerald, just like the 'K' in the context of it's rounded typographic colleagues, belonged in this restaurant. The warmth, people, food and atmosphere was unlike anything he had elsewhere experienced. Whenever he entered Katz's the walls, tiled floors, roofs and dining booths were a memory foam providing unconditional comfort and moulding to whatever mood he could have been in.
After one final imaginary salivation and inhalation, Gerald let his eyes wander to the next powerful memory. Through his window he saw a flash of vivid green. The plane was moving faster now and Gerald assumed this meant they were approaching La Guardia airport and their eventual descent. He imagined a landing that took place on what he had now identified the "green" as; Central Park. He would exit the plane and try to comprehend all that was before him. The fall season would encourage ever-inquisitive squirrels to climb to the top of maple trees with leaves temporarliy bleached orange, red and brown. He would feel the gusty breezes overwhelming him with calm. He would hear the ducks quack with a hauntingly song-like quality. For Gerald, artificiality was the most nature he needed. His feet sank into the grass because it had been cut perfectly by someone to allow that to happen. The noise of the ducks was symphonic and not cacophonous because someone had decided how many ducks there were to be. He was not wading through dead leaves because, the park being a sort of glorified garden, had someone taking care of it and removing said leaves. Gerald belonged to this sort of "nature", modified, altered and designed to be a paradise for all that chose to accept it.
The plane tore past the Chrsyler building and he, inspired by it, began to reminisce about his favourite architecture in Manhattan. There was the winding, pastry shape of the Guggenheim, that just like it's contents was the bearer of ultimate stimluation. He considered also the heavily, but not offensively, ornate Plaza Hotel that was the location for his guiltiest childhood pleasure, the film Plaza Suite. His favourite building however, was the gothic skyscraper; The Woolworth Building. Looking as though it had been carved by hand, the building was closer to a scupture than an inhabitable space. Which was why when one did enter the building they were pleasantly surprised by the welcoming warmth that overcame them. Gerald remembered at age twenty-seven, still feeling like the inside of the building was an exact realisation of what he, as a child, imagined the inside of a pipe organ to look like. It was in these masterpieces of construction and design that Gerald's faith in humanity was always immensely improved. He could even, when truly feeling united with these buildings, believe in an omnipresence or a spirit that belonged solely to Manhattan, and to him.
Suddenly, Gerald was awoken from his fantasy by a terrible plummeting feeling and the sounds of screams on board the plane. It did not faze him, for he was in his sanctuary, his haven. As the Boeing 767-223ER collided with the World Trade Center, Gerald was at peace. Gerald was home.
