Hypnotizing Maria

Unthinkable. It was no more possible Maria couldn’t land her machine than he couldn’t land his own.
    “When we accept our own suggestions,” said his strange companion, “it’s called autohypnosis



CHAPTER EIGHT
    H aving worn his mind on his sleeve a few years too many, Jamie Forbes had been practicing the opposite, till by now it was nearly habit.
    This Dee Harmon, he thought, the hitchhiker after coincidence, has given me more to think about than she knows.
    He glanced at the clock, put two ten-dollar bills on the café table. “I’ve got to be on my way,” he said. “Anything over twenty dollars, I’m afraid you’ll have to pay for it.”
    “Thank you,” she said, “I’ll do that. Where are you off to?”
    “Arkansas by noon, probably.Southeast from there.”
    She stayed at the table as he rose. “A pleasure to meet you, Jamie Forbes,” she said.
    I’ve got to be on my way , he thought, walking from the place. I don’t got to be at all. I could stay here and talk with this person all day, learn all she knows, a few hours worth, at least.
    All right, then: I want to be on my way.
    A suggestion which I accept, which I feel like accepting: I feel happy, leaving, walking across the ramp to the airplane, climbing again into the familiar cockpit, drying off from a flood of wild ideas, the wilder for they could be true.
Seat belt and shoulder harness buckles snapped into place, helmet on, radio cords connected, gloves on. What a pleasure, sometimes, is routine with a purpose: Mixture—RICH
Propeller Lever—FULL INCREASE
Magnetos—BOTH
Battery—ON
Boost Pump—ON, two-three-four-five, OFF
Propeller area—CLEAR
Starter Switch—START
    The propeller rotated three blades slowly, in front of the windshield, then vanished the instant the engine started, blue smoke wreathed for a second and gone in the blast.
Oil Pressure—CHECK
Alternator—ON
    It had never gotten old for him, flying. Never gone boring. Every engine start was a new adventure, guiding the spirit of a lovely machine back into life; every takeoff blending his spirit with its own to do what’s never been done in history, to lift away from the ground and fly.
    Lifted, too, from tea and toast with Dee Holland; he gave it not another thought during takeoff.
    We’re flying.
    Wheels up.
    Airspeed and rate of climb are good. Oil pressure and temperature, manifold pressure and engine revolutions and fuel flow and hours remaining, cylinder head and exhaust gas temp in the green, fuel level’s fine; check the sky clear of other aircraft, check the Earth unrolling softly below.
    Once one masters the basics of flying an airplane, there’s plenty of room for split personalities in the cockpit. One mind flies the airplane, the other solves mysteries for the fun of it.
    Minutes later, level at 7,500 feet heading one-four-zero degrees to Arkansas, one of Jamie Forbes’ minds fell to wondering why, if it were no coincidence, he had met Ms. Harrelson this morning, on her mission to prove what she’s so sure is true.
    Not every event needs to be labeled, he thought, coincidence or destiny. It’s what happens after, that matters—whether we do something with our little life-scenes or let them slip downstream from our heart, washed to the Sea of Forgotten Encounters.
    Had he hypnotized Maria into landing safely? Had he hypnotized himself that he could help her do it? Is hypnotism so common, we do it every minute of every day to ourselves and to each other and never notice?
    Hypnotism doesn’t pretend to tell us why we’re here, he thought, but it sure chatters on about how we come to this place and how we continue playing along.
    What if the hitchhiker were right, with her version, Maria landing in trance; what if it were true?
    If hypnosis is nothing but suggestions accepted, then a whole lot of the world we see around us must be paintings from our own brush.
    “Hello Pratt traffic, Swift 2304 Bravo’s entering forty-five to a left downwind Runway Three Five Pratt.” Faint on the radio, the airplane was miles away.
    What suggestions? For the first time in his life, in the high noisy silence of the cockpit, he opened his eyes to see.
    He flew back through time; time with himself and with others, through marriage and business, through the years in the military, through high school, grammar school, through home as a child, life as an infant. How do we become part of any culture, any form of life, save by accepting its suggestions to be our