The map I kept from the last flight

Found it in a drawer today—1987, RAF base in Cyprus. A hand-drawn route over the Levant, ink smudged near the Dead Sea. I remember that leg: no GPS, just a sextant and a gut feeling. The pilot said, 'You're good at this,' but he didn’t know I’d spent three nights memorizing every ridge line. Now it’s just paper, faded. But when I hold it, I still feel the vibration of the engines, like I’m back in the cockpit. Not nostalgia—just proof that something real once happened.