Round or Flat?

August 6, 2026

I’m working a trip to Paris. I’m early for my sign-in, so I stake out a quiet spot at the bottom of the stairs, down at the connector to terminal C. I’m scrolling on my phone, setting up some things on my iPad.

A man approaches from the escalator. He’s looking right at me, and I can tell he’s about to say something. Probably he wants trading cards, or has some nerdy question about planes. I don’t mind this at all. I’m only killing time, and it makes me happy when people take interest in my job.

“Hi,” he says. “Do you mind if I ask you a question? Whenever I see a pilot, there’s a question I like to ask them.”

“Hey,” I respond. “No, not at all.”

But something is off. What does he mean by “a question”? The phrasing, plus the oddly smug look on his face, are caution flags. This is going somewhere strange, I can tell.

“Round or flat?” he asks, folding his arms.

Oh. This. I look back at him, but don’t say anything. I know exactly what he’s asking, but I’m too annoyed, too disappointed, to speak.

“Are you a round earth pilot, or a flat earth pilot?” He’s half-smiling, looking down his nose at me, like he’s got me in a bind.

“Come on, dude,” I finally say. “Seriously?”

For a moment he seems startled. I’m probably less polite than most of the pilots he’s ambushed with this nonsense. He’s used to hearing the likes of, “Well, sir, you’re certainly entitled to your opinion, but I have to argue that the planet is round.”

And while that’s certainly true, I don’t have patience for it. “I’m not answering the question,” I say to him. “It’s too silly.”

He bristles, moves his head around.

And how unexpected this is. The man is so nondescript, so normal looking. Aren’t flat-earthers supposed to be dressed like medieval priests, with a crazy gleam in their eye? Here is a professional-looking 35 year-old with a neatly trimmed beard and luggage from Tumi. Is this what the Internet has done to us?

“What if I told you,” he goes on, “That fifty percent of the pilots I talk to say the earth is flat?”

I make an exasperated noise. “I’d say either you’re lying, or they’re messing with you.” (And if it’s the latter, I’d like to add but keep to myself, I don’t blame them.)

I could, I suppose, turn this into a gentlemanly discussion, where I invite him to sit, take out my charts, and brief him on the realities of latitude and longitude, great circle routes and such.

From there, once I’d convinced him of his folly, we could segue into a chat about map projections. One thing that has always irked me is the Mercator projection, with its massive distortions as you approach the poles. Kids grow up thinking Greenland is bigger than Africa, or that Alaska is the size of Western Europe. Point being: things aren’t always what they seem, or what conventional wisdom says they are. Common ground.

But I know there’s no point. No matter what I say, he won’t believe me. It’s no different with the chemtrail people, or the September 11th people. It’s like arguing religion. So I don’t try.

And with that he gives up. “Okay, he says “If that’s how you feel.” And he walks away.

Yes, that’s how I feel.

Why me? Why couldn’t this guy have just sauntered by and gotten himself lunch at Walhburger’s, instead of approaching me so that I can feel hopeless about the future of humanity? And this business about, “Are you a round earth pilot, or a flat earth pilot?” As if there are two camps. As if this is the kind of thing we debate all night flying across the Atlantic. As if his question isn’t, in fact, stupid.

And apparently it’s worse than I thought. A friend of mine, a pilot, told me that a man came up to him at a party and did the same thing. Another colleague said it happened to him in an airport restaurant.

“The Dark Ages,” wrote Kurt Vonnegut. “They haven’t ended yet.”

Artwork by Jack Niles and Gael Gaborel, courtesy of Unsplash.