Black Triangle

It's been awhile, so I've forgotten exactly what year it was.  There was still a gas station at the corner of 13th Street and Grand Avenue in Ames, Iowa.  Maybe 1976 or 1984, or thereabouts.

I lived a couple of blocks from that corner, and walked up to the gas station in the calm of one starry summer's night to buy a pack of Winstons.  I happened to look up.  I saw something that baffled my eye.

It was a black triangle headed due north, blotting out the stars.  It was utterly silent.  My perception rearranged itself.  Was that really much higher than it appeared, to make no noise?  If so, it was huge, larger than a battleship.  It was a flying machine, silently gliding north.

I've flown in two-seater small planes.  The noise is deafening.  I should have heard the roar of a jet, the growl of a small plane.  There was nothing there, no noise at all.  It wasn't a glider; there are none of any size that blot out the stars.

Just sayin'.