Sunday

Bonan­za Gloop, a Tier II Mud Mon­i­tor in Park Ridge, looks sky­ward at exact­ly 9:23 AM and notices that an Air­bus A320, CloudAir flight 447 inbound to O’Hare, has stopped in its final approach and is hov­er­ing in midair direct­ly above her mud field. Shocked and annoyed, Bonan­za imme­di­ate­ly noti­fies her supervisor. 

By 11:30, a small crowd has gath­ered to wit­ness the strange phe­nom­e­non. Bonanza’s super­vi­sors at Mud Cen­tral are busy research­ing pro­ce­dure in the Mud Man­u­al and have not instruct­ed her how to respond. 

“Hey,” says boiled food expert Bran­dolin Sur­plus, one of the dozens of gawk­ing civil­ians, “Do you think the air­port knows about this?” 

The air­port does know about this, and after repeat­ed and bel­liger­ent requests for com­ment from local media, O’Hare spokesper­son Kevin Kevin Kevin calls a press con­fer­ence and deliv­ers the fol­low­ing state­ment, pre­sent­ed here in its entirety: 

Thank you for your concern. 

He then leaves his podi­um, hur­ries to a wait­ing safe room, and locks him­self inside as fren­zied reporters attempt to ask him fol­low-up questions. 

Monday

Bonan­za Gloop returns to work to see the plane still hang­ing in exact­ly the same spot, and that the morn­ing mud has been ruined by a gath­er­ing of onlook­ers, whose pres­ence has made the mud ner­vous and soupy. Bonan­za is annoyed, but remem­bers her train­ing and keeps her emo­tions in check. 

“I won­der what’s going on in there,” whis­pers Mon­i­ca Sur­plus, Brandolin’s sister. 

On board CloudAir flight 447, calm and order reign supreme. Pas­sen­gers sit patient­ly as flight atten­dants embark on their fif­teenth bev­er­age ser­vice. In busi­ness class, mar­i­jua­na dis­pen­sary fran­chis­ing agent Sput­nik Hawaii glances placid­ly at his zinc-plat­ed design­er watch, and the voice of the pilot rings out over the speakers: 

Ladies and gen­tle­men, this is your cap­tain speak­ing. We con­tin­ue to hov­er 920 feet over Chica­go, and at this time our land­ing has been post­poned indef­i­nite­ly. When the sit­u­a­tion changes, you’ll be the first to know. Thanks for your patience! 

“You’re wel­come!” rejoin the pas­sen­gers in sing-song unison. 

“Gosh, it must be hor­ri­ble. I can’t even imag­ine,” con­tin­ues Mon­i­ca as her feet squelch in the mud. 

Bonan­za grits her teeth.

“Boo hoo,” adds Mon­i­ca. Squelch, squelch squelch. “Boo hoo hoo.” 

Tuesday

Bonan­za is hor­ri­fied to dis­cov­er that by the fol­low­ing morn­ing, a can­dle­light vig­il has bro­ken out in the mid­dle of her mud field. Scores of enthralled vig­ileers, heads cant­ed back at uncom­fort­able angles, jos­tle each oth­er for a glimpse of the hov­er­ing air­craft. Their feet have utter­ly intim­i­dat­ed the mud, and all of Bonanza’s encour­ag­ing progress has been lost. She can feel the fury boil­ing just beneath her scalp—oh, how she would love to fry these feck­less boors —fry their feet espe­cial­ly so they could nev­er ter­ri­fy the poor, inno­cent mud ever again! But she admon­ish­es her­self to remem­ber her train­ing, to remem­ber in par­tic­u­lar the words of her men­tor, a griz­zled old guru named Plax­ton Blonus: 

M’dear, the life of a Mud Mon­i­tor is full of sor­rows. It is our sta­tion. We are cho­sen for this task because we are strong enough to endure in wretched silence. 

And so, endure Bonan­za does. 

Air­port offi­cials still can­not be reached for fur­ther com­ment, despite reporters’ efforts to scale the con­trol tow­er and burn it to the ground. 

The plane con­tin­ues to hov­er, the lights on its wingtips blink­ing gai­ly as if not­ing is amiss. 

“I can’t take it any­more!” shrieks vig­ileer DiAn­nis­ter Shanklin, a minor-league shapes ana­lyst from Mesa, Ari­zona, on loan to Goose Island Brew­ing for the pur­pose of cre­at­ing a lim­it­ed run of octag­o­nal bot­tle caps. She stomps her mud­dy feet in impo­tent frus­tra­tion, and Bonanza’s blood growls in her head. 

Wednesday

Noth­ing hap­pens on Wednesday. 

Thursday

Thurs­day, Novem­ber 10^th is impor­tant because four things happen: 

1. That morn­ing, the Blob­cake Hut at Touhy and Green­wood offers a two-for-one deal on mashed toma­to Blob­cakes, and three peo­ple are killed in the ensu­ing frenzy.

2. The King of O’Hare arrives at work for the first time in remem­bered his­to­ry, calls all of the Air­port Regents into a dark and gloomy room, and makes an unspec­i­fied num­ber of secre­tive plans.

3. That after­noon, Bonan­za returns from her lunch break and is incensed to see that one of the vig­ileers has removed his shoes and is using his bare and hideous toes to forcibly agi­tate the mud. Bonan­za can feel the mud cry­ing out in anguish and fear, and she is no longer able to con­tain the sav­age fury that rips scald­ing­ly out the top of hear head, lay­ing waste to every vig­ileer in sight.

   In this rage-induced fugue state, Bonan­za ful­ly under­stands that her vio­lent reac­tion is moral­ly wrong and indeed unpro­fes­sion­al, but she is unable to stop her­self, almost as if she is watch­ing an amus­ing inter­net video depict­ing these vicious acts.

   When Bonan­za regains her com­po­sure, she is sur­round­ed by tat­tered bod­ies, all float­ing face-down in the pan­icked mud.

4. At 11 PM, Drex­el Con­vex­el, assis­tant answer­ing machine oper­a­tor at Lad­ders Excel­sior, the fore­most lad­der man­u­fac­tur­ing con­cern in all of Oak Park, logs a request for the most ambi­tious order his com­pa­ny has ever under­tak­en. After fill­ing out the order form, he rings the bell three times just as his father taught him so many years ago, and swal­lows a hand­ful of anti-anx­i­ety pills kept in a near­by glass ampoule for pre­cise­ly this eventuality.

Friday

Bonan­za sits in a dank cell in the sub-base­ment of Mud Central’s office of Munic­i­pal Mud Admin­is­tra­tion. She takes a deep breath as yesterday’s mem­o­ries come seep­ing back to her: so much feroc­i­ty. The mud must have been terrified. 

Alone for the first time, Bonan­za final­ly allows her­self to weep. Her offense is severe: she has let her anger pre­vail, and in so doing she has besmirched the name and noble call­ing of Mud Mon­i­tors every­where. Mud Central’s ret­ri­bu­tion will sure­ly be severe. She hears foot­steps in the cor­ri­dor and braces her­self for the worst. 

It would be an under­state­ment to say that Bonan­za is sur­prised by the per­son who enters her cell: Tedd Sprudd, the king of O’Hare! With four Air­port Regents in tow! 

King Sprudd explains to Bonanza—by way of an interpreter—that her feat of bar­bar­ic strength has come to the Airport’s atten­tion, and that he has a task for her by which she might atone for her shame­ful outburst. 

Bonan­za gra­cious­ly and grov­el­ing­ly accepts the King’s pro­pos­al, where­upon she is whisked away to a secret facil­i­ty near Con­course D. 

Saturday

At 7:07 AM, the lad­der is raised in the Trad­er Joe’s park­ing lot across the street from Bonanza’s mud field, com­ing to rest against the body of the strand­ed plane with a bare­ly-audi­ble clank. The event is attend­ed by his­tor­i­cal cer­tifi­cate cosign­er I. Zim­bab­we Escape, Jr., who ver­i­fies it to be the tallest lad­der ever used with­in the Chica­go met­ro­pol­i­tan area. 

Paus­ing only for a kiss of encour­age­ment from Munic­i­pal Kiss­ing Prac­ti­tion­er Vent Spif­f­en­ers, Bonan­za begins her 920-foot climb to the strand­ed jet. 

On board CloudAir flight 447, the strand­ed pas­sen­gers are enter­ing the sev­enth day of their flight. Spir­its remain high as the cab­in crew cues up the lat­est Kevin James movie for its 58^th con­sec­u­tive show­ing, and the plane is filled with jovial laughter. 

Bonan­za gasps for breath as she reach­es the apex of her climb, where she is care­ful not to stand on the top­most rung of the lad­der for safe­ty rea­sons. She finds that she can lean up against the fuse­lage of the jet as she rests, gaz­ing down at the city far below. She’s nev­er real­ly grasped how big it is until this moment, and she is alarmed to note how lit­tle of it is made of mud. 

It’s almost as if her job isn’t impor­tant, she mus­es before she stops her­self and clears her mind by inter­nal­ly recit­ing the Mud Mon­i­tors’ Oath: 

To this I swear, my word be true
I watch the mud and gain its trust
This watch I hold the whole year through:
I hold this watch because I must. 

Bonan­za knows what she must do. She ris­es to her feet, press­es her shoul­der against the cold met­al of the plane, and gives it a sin­gle emphat­ic shove. 

As the plane drifts away—slowly at first, but rapid­ly gain­ing speed—Bonanza watch­es the scores of hap­py pas­sen­gers wav­ing to her through their win­dows, mouthing the words, “THANK YOU!” as they sail off to their final destination. 

Well, that’s that, Bonan­za thinks to herself—and at that pre­cise instant real­izes that the plane is gone, and there is now noth­ing for the lad­der to lean against. 

Giv­en an alti­tude of 920 feet (h) and a mass of 130 pounds (m), with an air resis­tance of 0.16 pounds/​foot (k) and the grav­i­ta­tion­al con­stant of 32.19 feet/​second² (g), we can deter­mine the dura­tion of Bonanza’s free fall using the fol­low­ing formula:

$latex t=\sqrt{\frac{m}{\mathrm{g}k}}\arccos h\left (\mathrm{e}^{\frac{hk}{m}} \right ) &s=2$

There­fore: Bonan­za spends approx­i­mate­ly nine sec­onds in free fall, dur­ing which time she con­tem­plates her Earth­ly existence.

Second 1

Bonan­za reflects on her hatred of ladders.

Second 2

Bonan­za recalls an idiomat­ic expres­sion her moth­er used to use when she was over­come by emotion:

Looooo­ord piss a pickle!

Second 3

Bonan­za wit­ness­es a minor car acci­dent at Busse and Mor­ris. One of the cars is red and one is brown.

Second 4

The col­or brown reminds Bonan­za of her one true pas­sion: the mud. She thinks about how warm and gooshy it is, how full of hope and possibility.

Second 5

Bonan­za revis­its the mem­o­ry of her vio­lent out­burst. She con­sid­ers just how dam­ag­ing it must have been for the poor, saint­ly mud to see the guardian it had grown to rely on becom­ing so enraged and dead­ly, how the mud is now sure­ly trau­ma­tized for good. How she would nev­er have been able to ful­ly regain its respect, even had she suc­ceed­ed today.

Second 6

How per­haps it is for the best that she should perish.

Second 7

Bonan­za thinks back on all the good times she had with the Park Ridge mud—love and hap­pi­ness and grow­ing together.

How she’s sor­ry for the hurt she’s caused the mud, and how in time, under the watch­ful eye of a new, more com­pe­tent Mud Mon­i­tor, she hopes it can over­come this set­back and flour­ish once more.

Second 8

Bonan­za hears the Song of the Mud for the first time since she grad­u­at­ed from her train­ing and was adorned with her mud hat before a thou­sand cheer­ing well-wish­ers. It is wist­ful and beautiful.

Second 9

Now, Bonan­za knows, she will die. But she believes in her gloopy heart that she will some­day be reborn out of the muck, for from mud she came and to mud she shall return, over and over for­ev­er. Bonan­za Gloop. Gloop: mud. She is mud, in her mud-heart.

The mud field is close now. It is fit­ting that she should fall here. It is right.

At this moment, Bonan­za is trav­el­ing at 153 feet per sec­ond, or just over 100 miles per hour. She will strike the ground with a force of over 40 g’s, killing her instantly.

Or she would, were it not for the mud, which at this instant leaps up and envelops Bonan­za, cradling her for the final thir­ty feet of her descent and deposit­ing her gen­tly on the ground with what most onlook­ers hear as a whoosh, but sounds to Vent Spif­f­en­ers exact­ly like “I love you.”

CloudAir flight 447 lands safe­ly at O’Hare. Every­one hugs each oth­er and then goes home.

Sunday

By Sun­day, every­thing has returned to nor­mal. Bonan­za Gloop arrives at the mud field that morn­ing to find no jet over­head, no dis­rup­tive can­dle­light vig­il, just beau­ti­ful, beau­ti­ful mud.

The sun is bright. The mud twin­kles. Every­thing is going to be fine.