I’m stuck on a plane.
On a flight to Bali.
For what is supposed to be a brilliant way to start my summer.
I find myself sandwiched in an aisle seat surrounded by people I don’t know,  thousands of kilometres in the air.
I thought I came prepared
I charged my earphones.
I packed my laptop.
And I downloaded the last two seasons of Peaky Blinders.

But four hours into the flight, my earphones are out of charge, my laptop is in my carry on that’s packed way too far away from me and the last two seasons of a show that I dearly want to watch, failed to download.

Thus, I find myself smiling awkwardly at the young girl seated adjacent to me as she drops her fur toy continuously and fighting the 20 something boy I’m sharing a row with.
He is listening to EDM and watching his mates smoke bongs on his phone, fighting me for what should be rightfully mine in a mutual armrest.

 

Life has a peculiar way of forcing you into uncomfortable situations.
Much like this one.
Often you find yourself with something to do.
People try and say that they love doing nothing, but in actuality they still do something.

Nothing isn’t Netflix and chilling.
Nothing isn’t napping.
And nothing isn’t eating Doritos with your favourite salsa.

What I’m doing now isn’t nothing either, I’m writing, or more accurately bitching, about being hurtled through the air in a flying metal coffin to paradise.

But an hour before I started writing this into the note section of my phone, I was doing nothing.

My mind drove itself insane as I watched the minutes tick away from what seemed like hours and I found myself wishing nothing more than the worst at Virgin Australia for there lack of in-flight entertainment.

But amongst my riff-raff and internal frustration, I found out how fucking childish I am.

First of all, the reason for my suffering doesn’t lie with the poor people at Virgin… even though they need to step their game up.
And it isn’t with the bloke sitting next to me.

I fucked up.
I Should’ve brought a plan C, D and E.
So in my self-evaluation and solution to my problem, I thought of what the fuck people did before technology. I find myself wondering, How the hell did mum and dad travel all that way without a screen in front of them?

I still don’t know.
But what I do know is my ADHD ass needs to find peace in the next hour or I’m gonna start going to some dark places.

First, I calmed myself…3 deep breaths.

And then I decided to do something I haven’t done in a while.

Something I used to do as a kid to help pass the time.

I started making up stories not just about myself, but the people around me.

 

 

 

 

There’s a woman who keeps going back and forth from the bathroom. She’s wearing a G-Unit extra-large shirt, washed-out jeans and a bandanna over her head. Apart from her eyebrows, which are faded, she has no visible hair.

I know she has cancer because of the way her husband looks at her when she takes a nap after she sits down.

Although she isn’t weak, her face is more or less soft and has remnants of once being full and much more vibrant.
He strokes her hand and barely watches his iPad as her eyes flicker in and out.
As she passes me by, again and again, she occasionally stops and coughs. She grips the head of my seat and I see tattoos all around her ear and down her neck.

Their white people tattoos…corny hearts with weird roses, characteristically filled with names, probably of her kids.
As she waddles away back down the aisle I look at her husband. He has similar tattoos, all of which are complemented with a handlebar moustache and big scar on his shoulder that runs down his arm. I can see it because of the singlet he’s wearing which is also peculiar because he’s the only one wearing one on the plane.

I try not to stare at her as she walks passed again.
But my mind begins to wander, I imagine her, not with a bandanna covering her bald head but tied up in long blonde hair that has aged perfectly through the years.

I see her skin tanned and golden and her face and cheeks filled with whatever joy left her. I see a leather jacket flapping in the wind as her hands are cupped around the stomach of the man she loves.

His mo still white and grey but now smothering a smiling face and free of any look of concern. They’re on a Harley, loving life, riding along a highway that has the sea and mountains as its neighbours.

They laugh as he kicks the metal horse up a gear…and disappear into the sunset. Out of sight and not a worry in the world.

This makes me happy.

 

 

 

 

The little girl in the row next to me has fallen asleep. She watched Frozen then Toy story 4.

I know because I scabbed a couple of looks and watched it too. She looks at me every now and then and smiles.
She seems nice.
Well behaved, sweet and innocent.

Now she’s snuggled up in her mother’s arms and probably dreaming about Buzz Lightyear and Woody barely hanging onto the back of a truck.
She has the same sneakers as My cousins.
She even curls up to sleep, just like my cousins.
She is the same as my cousins.
She looked at me the way they do.
Wonder, curiosity and cheekiness.

I wonder if they’ll always look at me the same way.
If one day, they’ll stop looking.
If one day, they won’t need me to tell them that they’re watching too much tv.
Or to help them open up packets of chips, or carry their little bodies to bed when they fall asleep in the car.

I’m going to hate that day.
Hate it when I become another adult in their life.
A face in the crowd…another family member.

I’m going to hate that day.

For now, I find solace in that time being far from now.

And this makes me happy.

 

 

 

 

I flirt with the air hostess to make myself feel better about the flight.
After a lifetime of getting rejected by girls …this makes me feel a tiny bit better…especially when she touches my arm and winks at me as she walks passed.

She’s being nice.
I know she is.
It’s her job.

I know this because she’s doing the same thing to a bloke about 4 rows in front.
He’s white with a fade and hipster glasses.
He looks like the kind of Bondi wanker that I used to see at uni.

God, I hated those blokes.

He’s wearing an expensive watch …and I could tell he didn’t buy it.
He doesn’t wear it like he bought it.
He wears it like it doesn’t mean anything.
I know this because of the tonne of little scratches that I spy as he walks passed me to the bathroom.

This is why I know she likes me more.
Because of his loafers, boat shorts and expensive, button-up short sleeve.
I know it’s expensive because I have the same shirt.
It’s neatly folded in my suitcase on the way to Bali as we speak.

I also know she likes me more because I’m in trackies and a black tee.
My hair is a mess and my beard untrimmed.

I convince myself that she likes me more…but the truth is, she’s just doing her job.

I experiment and smile at the other hostess as she offers me water.

I smirk at her and wink…she smiles back and laughs loudly when I tell her I’m parched.
Now I know it’s just them doing their job…because that wasn’t that funny.

I still tell myself I’m a better guy.
Mostly because I didn’t stare at her ass as she walked by.

He did.

I know this because I saw him do it.

Fuck that guy.

Now, this, makes me happy.

 

Now having nothing to do isn’t so bad.