Descent
“First time on a plane?”
I blinked, tearing my eyes away from the window I didn’t recall staring out of. I turned towards the source of the question. Sitting across from me, his chin resting above his interlaced fingers, was unmistakably Jeffrey Epstein. His leathery face was split into a smile that didn’t quite reach his sunken eyes. “You sure seem out of it,” he chuckled sympathetically, “you feeling okay, son?”
I nodded instinctively. I was definitely not feeling okay. I had no recollection of the events leading up to this situation. Why was I sitting across from a man who was supposed to be dead? Was this a dream? But the faint smell of pressurized cabin air, the hum of the jet engines, and the vibrations of the plane that I could feel through my seat were far too realistic to be something I’d dreamt up.
“Well, that’s good,” he continued, glancing at my lap, “should we move on with the interview then?”
Interview? I followed his eyes and for the first time noticed the notepad and pen I was holding in my lap. There was something written on the notepad. I brought it closer to get a better look.
2019. His last flight. He must not know. Ask what you will.
I stared at the words, feeling more confused. Had I really been sent back in time just to ask this man a few questions? As disoriented as I felt, I couldn’t help but think what a waste of time travel that would be. What would I possibly want to ask the infamous Epstein?
“Well?” he prompted, a tinge of annoyance creeping into his voice.
I cleared my throat. “Sorry about that,” I said, trying to look apologetic, “it’s just my first time on such a luxurious plane. It probably cost you a fortune, didn’t it?” I paused, inwardly cringing at the question, but Epstein didn’t miss a beat.
“Oh, all of this is nice but it isn’t all that important,” he said, waving his hand dismissively and plastering a friendly smile on his face again. “What I believe is more important is the preservation and advancement of humanity’s achievements. You know, that’s why I’ve been such a thorough benefactor for…”
As I listened to him ramble on, I had to concede that he really knew how to sell himself. I could almost forget the man the future would come to know him to be. I suddenly felt a chill as the gravity of the situation sank in.
His last flight.
The man sitting across from me was confident and commanding. He’d sat in that same seat for years and years; a tyrant on his throne with this plane his empire. With each flight and each unpunished misdeed, he’d built up an unshakable faith in his own invincibility. A faith that now clashed with the inevitability of the future.
How many others had sat in my seat, helplessly waiting for the day the tyrant was toppled? Was their faith in a just universe strong enough to rival his faith in his immunity? After how many years did that flame of hope flicker and die out; starved for the oxygen that the bonfire of his belief devoured. Even the sturdiest of rocks crumble into sand at the hands unyielding waves. Was anyone else on this plane still thinking the unthinkable? That after all this time, everything would finally come crashing to an end?
Ask what you will.
What did I want to know? What could I ask a man who had forsaken his own humanity? It was disgusting how quickly the answer came to me. A single word to fulfill the gross curiosity humans have of those who have indulged in the forbidden.
“Why?”
Epstein paused mid-sentence at my interruption, a look of surprise on his face. “Pardon me?” he asked, his forehead creasing in a slight frown.
He must not know.
What did it matter if he knew? What did it matter if he found out that I knew? Faith can only help someone face the future. It cannot change it.
“Why did you do it?” I asked in a low voice, not bothering to filter out the disgust in my tone. I couldn’t tell if it was disgust at him, or if it was disgust at my own curiosity. I still didn’t know if any of this was real, and if it was, why I’d been sent back to question this man. But seeing him sitting back comfortably in his broad leather seat, surrounded by luxury, I had to know what was left for him to gain by sacrificing his morality and humanity.
There wasn’t any uncertainty in my question. We locked eyes for a moment before he sighed and turned his head towards the window to his right. There was a long pause before he turned back to look at me. His large affable smile was replaced by just a slight curl of his lips. It was the first smile that matched his eyes.
“Beauty is a fickle summit,” he said, in a tone of someone explaining something perfectly commonsensical to a child. “Perfection only serves to highlight the imperfect, rather than make up for it. A single crack running through an otherwise masterful sculpture pulls at our gaze, demanding our attention until it envelops us. The chip in the painting, the out-of-tune piano key, the single misstep of a performer…the flaws linger in our minds, overshadowing everything else, don’t they? It’s what we remember. We can’t help but be fascinated by the flawed.”
He paused, and I unconsciously flinched at the jab. So, he’d sensed the curiosity lurking under my disgusted tone after all. He smirked, leaning forward with his fingers once more interlaced below his chin. “Have you ever seen a fresh blanket of snow?” he continued. “How it conforms to the world that it lands on, taking on the shape of everything it covers in excruciating detail. It lies there in its unmarred beauty, as if pleading with us to allow it to stay that way. In that moment of vulnerability, what is it that most of us crave doing? We want to trample over it. We can’t resist leaving our footprints on the perfect. Now, the next eyes that fall upon the scene will not see the beauty of the snow. Their eyes will be drawn back to our mark, no matter how much they try and see past it. Leaving such a mark…it’s selfish thing. It really is. But it is the greatest luxury one can indulge in.”
He leaned back in his seat, his usual charismatic smile affixed to his face once more as a stewardess tapped on his shoulder and gestured towards a drink cart. He nodded and I watched as she began taking out a serving pitcher and a glass. It was all so methodical; so routine.
This was his desire? To revel in the euphoria of knowing that he had forever marked youthful beauty with a scar of his making?
How sickening.
What a mockery of morality it was that he could still smile with the same mouth that’d he shamelessly confessed with.
But our universe is not just. This plane lives in a world above silvery-white clouds. Here unadulterated, sterile sunshine floods the windows. Its purity is blinding. Maybe morals don’t exist here. The world below the clouds festers in trappings of vices and virtues, but high up away from humanity’s concrete jungles perhaps they have no place. Perhaps the sky truly is a safe haven from lady judgement. Is that why he looks so at peace, flying so high?
If that’s true, it is fitting then that this isn’t a place meant for humans to dwell. We are welcome to pretend like we belong here for a few hours, but we can never stay. For the ground below beckons. It is always there, awaiting our return. If the world above clouds is brilliant perfection, then the domain below is the flaw that we are pulled back to whether we want to or not. And within that flaw that we can never escape, lives humanity’s boldest defiance of the universe’s indifference. Law and justice; an imposition of order on chaos.
A soft bell chimed as the stewardess handed Epstein his drink, and the captain’s voice announced that the plane would soon begin its descent. I watched Epstein place the glass on the ledge beside him, his eyes glazing over as they passed by where I sat. I could tell that he could no longer see me. Whether this was a dream or not, it seemed that I had reached the end of my journey. And along with that, I’d reached a conclusion as well. I will never understand how the minds of people like him work and I regretted even trying to do so. It mattered not why he did what he did. All that mattered was the inevitable fall back to earth.
His last flight.
The plane dipped beneath the clouds. Here, the world isn’t as bright. It’s a little greyer. The sun that filters through isn’t as pure. It is a flawed world built by flawed people. But it’s our home. It’s the one place in this infinite universe where we can hear the clanging of lady judgement’s scales.
The plane around me began flickering and my vision began to darken. It was time for me to return to the world where the scales had been balanced. The last thing I saw was Epstein’s pensive face gazing out at the approaching ground below.
He must not know.
I smiled to myself. He would know soon enough.
