The bloke on the other side of the coach made it incredibly difficult to concentrate on the doubts I was having. The combination of his sobbing into the seat in front and very vocalised eating habits were not at all conducive to focussing my mind on the situation I had put myself in. I wanted to think about all the individual goodbyes I had had to make, the embraces that, for all I knew, could have been the last, the faces I might not see until they were almost twice as old again. But that god damn animal would not let me concentrate! How the hell was I supposed to come up with a legitimate scapegoat for giving up on the whole plan with him crying into his sandwiches!?
The goodbyes for each and every one of my friends and family had really done me in. Nothing had ripped me apart as much as that before, and nothing else was playing on my mind more as I sat on the four hour coach to London. Four hours to think about how I would go about backing out with the least damage to my ego sustained. If I left the coach wherever it stops off, headed back to Gloucestershire and snuck back in to work the next day, would anyone bat an eyelid? Denying all knowledge of ever quitting might work. I played through different scenarios and wondered if any of them were really an option. Before I could cement one in my mind we had reached the glamourous services of Northampton, and I felt my escape routes crumbling. Maybe I’d actually have to go through with this whole thing.
The driver made the rules for the rest stop very clear – twenty minutes in and out, no hot food brought back. I had not planned to be breaking rules so early into the trip, but twenty minutes for a piss and food at one of the M1s busiest services on New Year’s Day is just unrealistic and I wasn’t the only one caught with my pants down (metaphorically, not in the gents’.) I did my best, making it through two burgers and a coke, and I don’t think he’d have cut my balls off by any means, but I’m not too proud of sneaking those eight chicken nuggets onto the coach. They were delicious though.
Despite the prolonged time to think it over on the remainder of the coach journey and the painfully average hotel stay over, I did not back out and headed for the terminal bright and early using the free hotel shuttle that deemed last nights £30 taxi fare a complete waste of money. Thirty-five hours of travelling lay ahead of me, after which I would be touching down in Auckland at 9AM. My plan for avoiding jet lag was set, all I had to do was stick to it. This would not have been a problem five years ago, but I am no longer twenty-one and staying awake for anything over even twelve hours at a time was becoming more and more difficult. The twenty-two hours until the second flight nap stretched out in front of me, and I think I could just make out the end.
If ever you would like to see the truly intolerable nature of humans, book yourself an economy seat on a Trans-Atlantic flight. Throw five-hundred uncomfortable people into a steel can for ten or so hours, in seats designed to be just smaller than ergonomically passable, being served by flight attendants who would, literally, rather be anywhere in the world and the savage in everyone starts to flourish. It’s an interestingly vicious circle, people getting frustrated by frustrated people which, in turn, instils in someone else an unbearable frustration. I’m usually fairly good at switching off to these things, but by the end of the flight I too was circling the pit, spear in hand, ready to thrash whoever stood between myself and the bathroom.
The plane landed and each passenger one-by-one shoulder-barged their way off the plane. The six hour layover in LAX begun.
By this point I had been awake for 16 hours which, in the modern world of sustainable jobs and being a responsible adult, is when I would normally be taking myself up to bed. But I had six more hours to kill, and the absolute sterility of the previous flight had already began to induce some sleep deprivation – a mental state with a capacity similar to that of after a few hefty rums, but nowhere near as chirpy, entertaining or tolerable.
The first obstacle was making it through US Customs. For some completely backwards reason that still no-one has been able to justify to me, for a connecting flight even on the very same airline you must go through all the motions of leaving the airport, collecting your bags and stepping out onto the local tarmac, wondering whether to ditch all your plans and make a break for the American Dream instead. This did mean that there was potential for a whistle-stop tour of Los Angeles in the four spare hours I had, but the combination of the view of 90% smog from the plane window and the hot LA stench as I left the airport led me to decide against it. An opportunity missed perhaps, but in my sleep-deprived stupor I saw it more as a method of avoiding being robbed.
LAX is not a fun airport. Once through the truly emotionless security team, one is presented solely with corridors and gangways that really do not inspire any kind of creative thought. As much as I explored for a spark that would keep me awake, the only item of any mild entertainment to be found was a grand piano hidden away, at the time occupied by a child who, for all intents and purposes, might as well have been physically shitting on it, such were the noises being made. I do enjoy the odd slice of Avant-Garde music now and then, but I wasn’t about to force myself to witness a small child hammer a multiple-thousand pound instrument and pretend it was anything less than tragic.
Failing any kind of entertainment on offer I retired to the waiting area of my gate, desperately trying to think of a way to stay awake. It was the equivalent of 2AM Greenwich Mean Time and I had been awake without booze or drugs for eighteen hours. If I listened to music, I would fall asleep. If I listened to the droning voices of any videos, I would fall asleep. If I sat there and placed my bag next to me in just such a way that I could lean over slightly and rest my head on it, I would fall asl-
Waking up to the call of the gate after only two hours of sleep when my body was craving so much more, I was in the least coherent mental state I had ever consciously known myself to be in. I could almost take a step back and watch myself ambling up to the desk, waving passport and boarding card for dear life, mumbling something along the lines of my name and destination. The walkway to the aircraft was all downhill. “Perfect!”, I thought, for someone such as myself, relying heavily on the backup of gravity to get me onto the plane. The gradient of the plane itself was much more flat, as is the unfortunate traditional design of passenger aircraft. But knowing it was the last fifty metres before I could finally rest, it did not weigh on my thoughts too much, and as long as I kept my body leaned forward, I knew I was heading in the right direction. Sleeping on a plane usually is a nigh-on impossible task for me, but I was unconscious before we even left the ground of LA.
I’m not sure what meal of the day they were calling it with it being 2AM PST but being awoken for food was the only thing I was happy to be awoken for. I think even the plane burning out of the sky would have interested me less than the sleep I was catching up on. It was at this point that I first noticed Jane, the Flight Attendant dealing with our back-left section of the plane. Though I’m not familiar with the strategic decisions of a crew of flight attendants, I’m sure there is a rigid structure put in place to most efficiently tackle the meal distribution and trash collection of a two-gangway, five-hundred person flight. Jane, however, was somewhat of a maverick in this regard, acting more like a personal host to those who were lucky enough to be sat in her coverage area. It was clear the rest of the crew were aware of her disregard for ‘the plan’, but there also seemed to be an unspoken air of respect for her between them, like some kind of war-beaten veteran of public air travel. Through the remainder of the thirteen-hour flight Jane’s innovations gradually multiplied, and before long she had reduced her host count to a select few individuals she took a fancy to, myself being one of them. It was almost worth staying awake for.
A thirteen-hour flight is a thirteen-hour flight is a thirteen-hour flight. There is no way to speed it up. The in-flight entertainment may bury two or three hours, but before long even that loses what little charm it might have first had. My routine of sleeping, being woken by Jane for food or drink, and sleeping some more was the best I could come up with to get me through this hellish flight. But after a while my body had grown tired of shit sleep and refused to allow any more without proper sleeping arrangements, so I decided on a lap of the plane.
There really was nothing interesting going on at all, some people reading, some people scanning the entertainment system for any kind of relief, most people sleeping in all manner of strange positions that clearly was gaining them no benefit. Not even the slightest hint of a scrap or disgruntled passenger. This might have gone down as the smoothest flight in known history, and it was tearing me apart. Reaching the very back of the plane I walked in on Jane, sitting alone staring intently out the window. Debating whether seeing someone try to throw themselves out of an aeroplane window would perk me up or not, I inquired what it was she was staring at.
I had never seen it before, but the active filters on this particular plane’s windows were playing with the sky in the most amazing way. I had lost all track of time and time zones and International Date Line crossings to have any inkling what year it was, but through the plane window could be seen the most incredibly bright celestial ball in a completely blackened sky being held up by beautifully illuminated clouds, all with a gradual purple-red hue splayed across it.
Jane and I debated for a while whether it was the sun or the moon – it was far too bright for the moon, but the sky was too dark for it to be the sun. As was to be expected the scene was too contrasted for any kind of worthy recreation on a camera, though I was damned to try my best. We sat for a little while longer, chatting about how many times she had seen that view over how many different countries. I returned to my seat unaware of how much time had passed, feeling content and hoping to meet many more trail-blazers like Jane over the coming trip.
Following a bumpy and wavy landing we eventually touched down in Auckland. After reading the immigration card given to us on the plane, I’d built up a fair old level of stress about making it through customs. Foreign ecological matter was a huge no-no for this country, and I was painfully aware of the months-old caked-up Bristolian mud and dog shit that was still on my shoes in my checked bag. Upon picking my bag off the carousel, I switched shoes and headed to the toilets for an emergency clean up. Much to my delight, the half used bag of baby wipes left on the toilet roll dispenser made it clear that someone had too been in this situation, and was graceful enough to leave their tools behind for me. As I stood there in the disabled toilet, frantically scrubbing every last trace of England off my shoes, continuously accidentally triggering the motion sensor flush of the toilet, I imagined the disappointed look on everyone’s faces if I were to be immediately deported for hiding the evidence in the pipes.
Seeing the state of some of the tents and walking boots my fellow travellers had brought into New Zealand, I knew I was over-reacting. But it wouldn’t be unlike me to fall at one of the first hurdles. I made it through customs and the rest of the journey is fairly blurry. Breaking through the wall of customs immediately released the built up stress and all that remained was for the sleep-deprivation to take hold once more.
It wasn’t until I first hit the mattress at 2PM, after somehow dazing my way through Auckland, that it occurred to me: I hadn’t laid down in around 48 hours. I was aware the savage jaws of jet lag were dangerously close to chewing me up. My plan was to make it until at least 8PM before sleep. But… 48 hours is a long time. And it would only be a quick nap…
It was when I regained consciousness at 12AM, wide awake, my body clearly having no intention at all of returning to sleep that I knew I had fucked up.
Ramblings of a Lost Englishman 