Pete, who recently lost his father in a plane crash, is seducing a young woman in her apartment. Bizarrely her mother is sitting in the kitchen behind some screen doors, and he knows this, but he gets stuck in. The room appears to have no windows. It's like Eraserhead.
She puts the telly on, and there are pictures of bombers, and a strange announcer reading a poem by John Gillespie Magee, Jr - a poet from Rugby, who fought in the Battle of Britain, and died in a mid-air collision at the age of 19. It's a flawed poem, it might seem mawkish but I think it's an interesting choice for this show. And he was a teenager when he wrote it.
High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
ETA - try to get past 'laughter-silvered wings'
