On the face of it, this seems absurd. Human memory may be highly malleable and frequently suspect when it comes to recalling details—say, the facial features or costume of a stranger—but surely we’re observant enough to notice the presence of someone sitting a few feet away. Aren't we?

There’s a surprisingly moving episode in the first (and best) season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in which a high school student slowly becomes invisible because no one notices her: her physical state transforms to reflect her social status. She’s not beautiful enough to envy, awkward enough to mock, or even clumsy enough to earn her peers’ laughter. She exists, but only barely in a teen world unwilling to validate her quiet personhood. And so, in the supernatural world Joss Whedon has created, she just . . . disappears.

Which is essentially what happens to the little girl in Schwentke’s film. The adults take no notice of the kids on board unless they’re making a ruckus, and seem pretty closed off from one another as well. Headphones, personal TV screens, and spacious chairs encourage the passengers to withdraw into their own worlds as completely as they would elsewhere. The close quarters of this plane engender no unplanned intimacy; everyone one seems comfortable ignoring their nameless companions until the (inevitable) crisis hits.

Which seems to me a pretty accurate picture of our world. If it ain’t technology creating new, ironic distances between us and our fellow man, it’s our own proclivities. We’re racing so fast to accomplish so much that we don’t have time to spare for a glance at our neighbor, let alone a conversation with her. Instead, we pass each other at high velocity, like shadows flitting past one another in the dark.

So, actually, it makes perfect sense that no one notices this little girl, that everyone is later hard-pressed to even remember her being on board. It's not like our fellow humans glow or anything . . .

“Next Time”

Next time what I’d do is look at
the earth before saying anything. I’d stop
just before going into a house
and be an emperor for a minute
and listen better to the wind
or to the air being still.

When anyone talked to me, whether
blame or praise or just passing time,
I’d watch the face, how the mouth
had to work, and see any strain, any
sign of what lifted the voice.

And for all, I’d know more—the earth
bracing itself and soaring, the air
finding every leaf and feather over
forest and water, and for every person
the body glowing inside the clothes
like a light.

by William Stafford