GIRA DOUX

Belvedere Jehosophat - Sunday, 13 February 2005 - 16:03:12 - print it raw

Let me tell you something about the pilots who burn to death in their planes.

What happens during the catastrophe is really unimportant; just know that these people suffer terribly - an insular, claustrophobic sort of burning.
It speaks to the existence of a divine torturer. Speaks to, mind you, and nothing else.
What we find afterwards isn't terribly exciting either: charred faces fixed in horrible grimace, burnt uniforms melted to burnt cadavers, the offensive lingering stench of death, etc, etc.

No, what's more important and infinitely more interesting is how a pilot in a plane in the sky can, all of a sudden, find himself hurtling towards the ground at a preposterous speed.
Let's take one pilot and assume - for the sake of simplicity alone - that he (and in this case it is a he) somehow represents all pilots (not necessarily all hes).

This particular pilot woke up with a hangover. He always did.
He drank alone. He always did.
He also drank a lot.

A recreation of that fateful day:
He stumbled into the bathroom. Through blurry eyes he spat into the toilet, and was surprised to see that his spittle formed the shape of what looked like an upside-down loveheart. He admired it for just a second before obliterating it with a stream of urine. He showered and shaved and found himself ready for work. (He was paid to fly his plane around in circles. He didn't know what purpose it served, but he did it, and he did it without complaining.)

OK, let's clarify & describe fully our scene: our pilot is in the sky in his plane. He is no longer drunk. He is no longer significantly hung-over. He did not have a death wish.

How did he crash then? And why did he burn?

It's called liver encephalopathy (portal-systemic encephalopathy, hepatic encephalopathy, hepatic coma). Liver encephalopathy is a disorder in which brain function deteriorates because toxic substances normally removed by the liver build up in the blood. In the case of our pilot the deterioration of the liver was caused by excessive alcohol abuse.

The disease was only in its early stages, symptoms of which include subtle changes in logical thinking, personality, and behaviour.
Unfortunately, judgement was impaired just enough...

How a pilot with liver encephalopathy was allowed to fly is a matter for some sort of inquiry.

That's really all I have to say on the matter.

Hail, hail the lucky ones
I refer to those in love, yeah