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Mount-Royal: 45.5N -73.583333W
Francesca via form
Montreal - April 16, 2011
It was a Sunday in early September of 2006. We could feel the first slight chill in the air but it was still warm enough for picnics, so we went up to the Mountain just in time for a late lunch. We spread our blanket on the grass near the gazebo, so we could still hear the tam tams and had a nice view of the volleyball nets. We had finished our meal of brie, baguette and apples when suddenly a little plane was coming down through the trees over Parc Avenue, heading south. It was completely silent, like an apparition. The wings tipped back and forth as we watched, as though it was trying to steady itself. It was a tense moment as we waited for it to land. There was no way to tell what would happen, if it would land smoothly or not. Miraculously the street was empty - the light across from the statue must have been red. We saw a man running toward the little plane and as it touched down, grabbing one of its wings to try to stop it. This somehow added to the strangeness of it all, watching him run hard to catch the plane and then place himself at the tip of the wing nearest us, running backwards now as he pushed in the opposite direction of the plane's trajectory, like Superman might have done, only with much less effect. It seemed foolish and futile, since who knew what was wrong with the plane, whether it might burst into flames, and trying to stop it manually was like trying to stop a small bus. Eventually he let go and the plane came to a stop a little way further down the road, only slightly sideways. By this time no one was playing drums anymore, or playing Frisbee, they all had run down to the street in amazement, wanting to see who the pilot was and if there were any passengers. We watched as two men and a boy got out on legs we could see were shaking from where we sat. Nobody was hurt and the plane seemed fine aside from an engine that stalled. Eventually the police arrived and cordoned off the area. We had never left our blanket as the scene played out and now we turned away from it towards each other and began recounting the story to ourselves, what we had seen and thought and felt, committing it to memory. Neither of us had a camera.
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