Oceanic Flight 710

There is a reason why I don’t visit back home that often.

Today I was reminded of that once again. It’s not the costs. Of course it is a factor, but not THE factor. And I think it’s not my fear of flying either, even though this is a hard one to believe. But it definitely has to do with being locked into a plane for miserable 8+ hours, 31,000 feet above safe ground in a canister barely big enough to rely a false impression of safety. It is being bound to these tight seats, cutting off the blood flow to the hamstrings, sending tingling feelings down to the toes, intensified into a numb sensation due to the airconditioner. Knowing that the flight will be over an hour less than originally announced does not help the caged feeling which sets in latest after dinner, around hour two. Sleep is a thing of impossibility, even though there is that lucky one lady who scored three seats all to herself and whom I could watch these past hours comfortably craddled and curled across them, slumbering away, while myself I was counting sheep which didn’t show and fighting the gaps and crevices, black holes for my tiny pillow being gulped away, leaving me with nothing else than countering, tensed and aching neck and shoulder muscles.

The lights in the cabin just turned back on. The smell of freshly brewed coffee is finding its way. Only another half an hour and these past, endless hours will culminate into these couple minutes of plain terror while this plane is finding its footing and grounding and then coming to its end.

And after that it will be that little sigh and loosening of tension into this all relaxed feeling, evaporating those intense moments into nothingness, like lovers after their climax.