The pilot has fallen asleep.
He didn’t get enough rest last night.
(Or any night.) Yet, still he went to work.

The tilt of the wheel, it started.
The slow descent to the Nevada desert.
A bed prepared with dust and weeds.

His passengers still don’t know.
Like a boat taking on water,
The plane sinks slowly in the clouds. 

The nose of the plane grows heavy.
The cockpit starts to glow.
Alarms, bells and flashing lights.

Still the pilot sleeps.

The trajectory alarming every passenger.
”Where is the co-pilot”, shouts one.
”Can anyone fly this thing!” Panics another.

No. There is no one. Only the pilot.
Sleeping sound. No one can stir him. 
Yet with Olympian skill, his plane dives.

Oxygen masks fall. Tears fly.
Luggage pours from the compartments above.
”This is it, we’re all going to die.”

As though his dream had ended,
The pilot awakes. Horrified, he recoils.
Pulling the steering wheel back all the way.

Alarms, bells and flashing lights.
Sweat everywhere and his heart is in his throat.
“Oh God, save us.” He thinks.

But all the pulling in the world,
all the praying, It couldn’t save his ship.
Not from the force of the earth, falling into the sky.

No one can know from where it came,
the terror in his face—
From his imminent death, or overwhelming guilt.

“I did this”, were his last thoughts,
as his arms cover his his head
and deflected the oncoming shower of glass.

But soon came through the cockpit,
metal and shrapnel and fire and rocks.
Burning everything, and crushing what it didn’t.

The screams and cries lasted only a second.

The explosion a second more.
Then the fire several hours.

But then, then it was over.
Because the pilot fell asleep;
And it was just too late.