Distractions (closed to me and kaitlyn_sun)

"You know that Gary Larson cartoon? The guy on a plane, seated next to a slightly odd looking character. I mean, it's a funny cartoon: odd is relative. But still. And he's thinking, 'Why do I always have to sit next to some weirdo?' But the other seat next to him is clear, and he hasn't realized yet that coming up the aisle is this guy with a massive head, gnarled features - a real weirdo. That one? Well, that's me on planes. Now, you might think it's amazing source material for a man in my line of work. But no. It is not. On planes I like to eat, drink, and sleep. Alone. That is why I will require you to book me not one but two seats, alone, to one side of the front row of a compartment of a plane, where the legroom is, well, roomier. It does not have to be in first. It does not even have to be in business. It can be in coach. But I need two seats. Then we have a deal. Then I will come to your conference, sir, and deliver your keynote address."

"Really?," my dear old friend, colleague in crime fiction, and occasional sparring partner Ingvar had chuckled, "They bought that crap?"

"They did," I smiled.

"My friend, if you plotted your novels as well as your machinations over complementary travel arrangements," he chuckled down the phone, "You'd be almost as good as me!"

We laughed, long and hard. Ingvar had given the previous keynote at the Cloak and Dagger conference - well, really a glorified convention for fans and wannabes - that I was to keynote in Bali, and he had some lovely tips for places to visit once my duties were fulfilled: shadow plays, gamelan, good food, interesting people... So it should not be quite as horrible as these things usually are. The accommodation looked incredible too. Why not ride the scandi-noir wave, he'd told me: go on, let yourself live a little, friend. You've bloody earned it, in every way. I sighed. He was too correct.

Remembering this conversation of earlier in the day fondly, I slowly stretched my legs. Curious: in fact, all of the seats in the front row of the section were still empty, with just moments to go until the plane was scheduled to depart. I could run sprints up and down the row! Well, I could have, once upon a time. More of a jogging pace nowadays.

I stood up to get a fleece blanket from the compartment overhead. It was a night flight, and it would feel chilly. And that's when I saw them coming.

The weirdos.

First up: well, if it isn't Jerry's parents from Seinfeld. With a hint of Mr and Mrs Costanza thrown in for good measure. Please God, let him sleep far, far away from me. He has the look of a snorer.

Coming up close behind them, child wranglers, with wrangled tots in tow. That weary, anxious look of parents about to embark on a flight with their little ones. Will they sleep? Will they scream? What if they left Bunny on the travelator? Wide eyed children follow, two of them. A little girl staring all around her, up too late, in love with the experience. I cannot help but smile.

I am about to sit down with my blankets - two, of course, one for each of my seats - when I see the last in their party. A pinched face, braced against who knows what familial foul weather, yet it cannot hide her standalone beauty. 33, perhaps? A deep frown; more of a scowl. Fixed stare into the space in front of her: into nowhere. A silent fury somewhere deep inside.

The whole procession suddenly stops - a dropped bear. It's like the elephants in The Jungle Book, each bumping into the next. She avoids the melee, just. Rolls her eyes to the heavens. No help there. Briefly, as she stares at the roof, a genuine emotion crosses her face. Utter sadness. The poor girl. Somehow broken. Then they move on, and it's gone. They arrange themselves across the remainder of our row, and much of the one behind it. Fortunately, not in the seats behind me, I note, before immediately disapproving of myself. Karl Lindberg, you must try harder, I noted. One day. Sometime before you die. Which won't be long, surely.

The Seinfelds take the middle three seats. Parents to the outside. He, of course, nearest to me. As I sit back down, I try not to stare at the shapely behind within what appear to be her yoga trousers as she hovers, not yet sitting, not yet committing, to the task ahead. I fail, but then, I always do. It is, also, right in my eyeline as I sit. Very nice. Then she sits, staring fixedly ahead. Her mother animatedly berates her. A final sense of her body language: pained, taut. Frozen.

I feel a pang of genuine regret for her. Now, she would be a good character.

I fold up the arm between my two chairs, ready to snuggle down across them as soon as the seat belt light is extinguished. A short nap and then the champagne, and some food.

The plane begins to taxi. Agonizingly slowly, as ever, it meanders until it finds the correct path, and then that rush, that pressure, that neverendingly exciting sense of abandonment... we're all wide eyed infants now, in our mother's arms. We're up! We're away! I smile broadly.

The belt light clicks off once we've leveled. Quiet announcements. Murmuring returns across the plane, some of it louder than other murmurs. I unbelt and settle down across my seats, curling up. I can sense the disapproving looks from across the aisle, but I do not stir. I write of the dead, and if nothing else, I sleep like them too.

http://i.imgur.com/KYlnHsH.jpg

This was meant to be the start of something special.

Her parents 40th wedding anniversary was this week, and she and her sister had been planning this trip for almost two years. They were going to take the trip their mom and dad hadn’t been able to take back when they were married; They would spend a week and a half in Bali, and they’d bring the entire family with them.

Then, about a year and a half ago, Hanna finally got the promotion she had been working for since college. She was in charge of an entire department, and was finally able to really feel like she was making a difference. Her schedule normalized, and she and her husband were finally able to spend the time together that they had always wanted. That, when she looked back now, was when things turned sour. She and her husband Evan had spent seven years living with their roles in the relationship. He had been the main breadwinner, working in a job he only tolerated to support his wife. When she suddenly was making as much as him at a job she enjoyed, he started resenting her. She resented him back. They struggled, trying to find something, some bridge to get their relationship back…

She cried every night for eight months. Her relationship was crumbling all around her. Twelve weeks ago, he moved out. Seven weeks ago, he filed for divorce. Three weeks ago, she signed the papers. She was still living in their old apartment. She was still using condiments he had bought, still deleting shows they had meant to watch together off her netflix cue.

Her name change paperwork hadn't gone through yet. She still had his fucking last name.

But she wasn't mad, she thought to herself as she watched her niece and nephew play in the airport seats, ready to take this trip with her family that was supposed to be so special. She wasn't mad, or even sad anymore. She had cried so much during their long, slow, crushing collapse, she couldn't cry about it now if she wanted to. No… it just hurt. Her pain was constant, and unwavering… like a hole where her anger was supposed to be.

They called her boarding group, and she stood, pulling on her backpack, helping her sister heard her kids for a moment. Kelly had revealed to their parents that she was pregnant with her third child as soon as the whole family had gotten together. Hanna had hugged her and her husband and laughed and celebrated… and she was happy for her big sister, she was. But she felt like such an utter drag. She hadn’t been able to trade her couples bungalow for a single, so she’d had to get a refund for the entire package… she was going to be staying in the small second bedroom of her parents luxury suite. Here she was, the most successful she’d been in her entire life… spending a week and a half in paradise...

And she was reduced to sleeping in the room next to her parents.

They clamored into the plane, and she kept herself together, trying not to let her sourness bring the rest of her family down. They deserved a wonderful blessed vacation, and they shouldn't have it spoiled by the fact that Auntie Hanna was a failure as a wife and a woman…

She closed her eyes against the wincing stab of self-loathing that struck her. She didn't cry anymore, but sometimes she felt her body go through the motions.

As wake-up alarms go, the chinking glasses of an approaching drinks trolley takes some beating. Slowly going vertical, I stretch and note the changes that have befallen the cabin in the hours of flight during which - as usual - I have slept like the dead. The epic sprawl of family occupying the seats nearest me have all slipped under - save, I see as I lean forwards to extend my spine, the beautiful woman I noted earlier. Her parents (the father now snoring, as anticipated, like a congested bull seal) have smothered her rather literally, their heads on her shoulders. A greater tragedy now befalls her: as the stewardess offers a drink, she has to raise an ironic, regretful eyebrow implying "sorry - no free arms". This is true tragedy, however - moments later, just as the trolley moves fatefully further away, the father stirs, releasing one shoulder and an arm. She could now have a drink after all. I can hear her slow, controlled sigh from my seat.

A few minutes later, when the trolley reaches me, the stewardess is smart enough to know my two seats equate to two drinks. Usually, I would be modest and accept only one, but tonight I lean close to the girl, risking a dose of too-heady perfume, and whisper "Please - pass one of the glasses of champagne to the young lady sitting two seats across from me. She was unable to partake when you passed by a few moments ago."

The stewardess raises an eyebrow, assessing my motives. "Should I say the drink is from you?" she asks, eyes lighting up.

"No need", I chuckle, "Except if it might reassure her. Just a fellow passenger concerned for her well-being. Not a stalker!"

After dispensing my glass - a reasonable champagne, under the circumstances - she pours a second and makes her way over. I do not stare, not wishing to embarrass my fellow traveler, but I see, from the corner of my eyes, she initially shakes her head. Then, after a few warm and comforting words from the stewardess, she accepts. She takes a sip, then a longer drink. Now she looks across at me.

I smile what I hope is my warmest, most reassuring, brimful of empathy smile. She nods in reply, hardly smiling at all, then stares fixedly ahead at the wall in front of her. Still, I see her posture relax a little, sinking back into her seat.

I relax back into mine and sip my champagne. My good deed for the day. You'd be proud of me, Lisbet, I whisper under my breath.

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Her dad’s snoring always worried her mom. He had sleep apnea, and while his breath mask allowed him to sleep without risking his health, When he nodded off sitting up he would snore again, and that left her mother a minor nervous wreck. She woke him up a few times to spare her mother her worry, but it was a long flight. Eventually, she just let him lean on her. She held her mother’s hand to try to sooth her.

So of course, no… she couldn’t have a drink. She wouldn’t have thought to have one anyway, although once the stewardess had moved on, she considered that it probably wouldn’t have been that bad an idea. Lord knew she was doing a lousy job of relaxing. Her dad awoke again, and picked up his book, hopefully finally rested enough that he’d stay up. Olivia considered calling the stewardess and getting that drink…

But she appeared all on her own, with a glass of champagne. Olivia looked up at her, confused. “Um… I didn’t order this…”

The older woman smiled at her. “It’s from another passenger. He noticed that you couldn’t get something earlier.”

She raised her eyebrow at that. What is this, a singles bar? She looked around trying to figure out just who her mystery lothario might be, but didn’t see any of the usual suspects… the ballcapped fuckboys or the well-coiffed suit and tie after work three-drinkers. She had been single for a grand total of eleven months since she had graduated high school, and as best as she could tell, the whole thing was a dreadful bust. After a moment, she realized that the only possible candidate was the gentleman sitting across the aisle from her and her parents. He didn’t seem to be looking at her as though he expected something from her… She considered the possibility that his gift had actually amazingly, been just that.

She acquiesced and accepted… she had just been thinking about getting something, in any case. The stewardess handing her the glass. Her mother leaned over, asking her what she had gotten… even though she could clearly see it was champagne. She sipped it, closing her eyes, lying back in her seat. For a brief moment, she was actually able to get out of her head and all the turmoil that had been ground zero for so much of the day, and just enjoy something. She hadn’t realized just how desperately she had needed this.

She glanced at her benefactor, and for a second, they caught eyes. She smiled at him in thanks. He was an older fellow, but he certainly wore it well. She wondered absently if he was travelling alone.

At a certain point during a twenty-hour plane journey, the sane begin to question their recent life decisions. The rest of us continue to drink.

The complementary champagne long gone, I decide to visit the on-plane bar. My business class seats permitted me access to this airline's much-vaunted distraction from the fact that thousands of empty, frozen feet of space lay just beneath one's actual feet.

As I stood, I plugged the earbuds of my HD digital music player into my head. Bruckner. Those vast symphonic expanses: so right for intercontinental flights, and for gazing out of a small round window at clouds lit up by moonbeams. As the music flooded into me, I closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them, I saw the recipient of my extra glass of champagne. Our eyes met again. I held up my empty champagne flute and pinged it, raising my eyebrows in a shrug that said, I hoped, "More drink required." It probably said "desperate loner", and I immediately regretted gazing even for a moment more at this lovely but young, young woman. Those pale brown eyes, framed by raven dark hair, her exquisite, slightly dusky skin...

For God's sake man! Swiftly, I departed the cabin.

Arriving at the bar, I decided it was time to move swiftly beyond the effervescent foreplay of the champagne and onto the hardcore satisfactions of the evening. Or was it evening? Bali was half a day away, literally... so it was both the middle of the night and the middle of the day. Scotch is the only drink to accompany such thoughts of relativity. Scotch and Bruckner!

A corporately beautiful barmaid - sequined tight dress, fixed smile, buy-me eyes, - glides over to where I perch at the bar. "Lagavulin 8?" I ask. "We only have the 16-year-old, sir", she smiles, more winningly. "How exceptionally disappointing", I grin back. "Please bring me a double."

Strings ache through an infinite adagio; clouds glimpsed through the porthole behind the bar glint chrome and midnight blue. The sweet, salty, dark and difficult drink fills my mouth, my throat, my chest.

Almost a perfect moment, I thought to myself, drifting. Almost perfect.

http://i.imgur.com/KYlnHsH.jpg

The airport was immediately adorable. She loved airports on these small little islands; they looked more like high school gymnasiums. She helped her parents and her sister heard the children, which made it a fairly effortless task; when there were five adults, two children weren’t that hard to manage.

Of course, it continued to reinforce her feelings of being a perpetual fifth wheel, but there wasn’t much to be done for that.

They got on the shuttle to the resort, and all climbed out at the gorgeous main offices. All exposed wood and bamboo, and everywhere you looked you caught glimpses of the gorgeous blue water that extended out into the distance. The ceilings were lofted high, and with minimal fuss with her father (who continued to be surprised when people, even in a tourist economy, spoke English), They were all riding on golf carts being driven by local staff out over the rolling grassy trails through the various buildings that made up their resort. Soon they came to a pure white beach, and rode a bit further, finding a sturdy looking deck that stretched far out into the water of the lagoon. On either side of the deck, there were gorgeous little cottages with thatched roofs.

Olivia and her sister high fived as they watched their parents kiss, finally having arrived at their dream honeymoon.

They disembarked… apparently you couldn’t drive the carts on the deck. With their baggage in hand they went down the deck… the little ones carefully holding their parents hands so the didn’t wander off, fall into the water, and try to drown themselves. They found their cottage first… one with handrails railings everywhere with child locks that were built for families. Olivia helped them haul in their baggage, and then felt like even more of a burden as she walked with her parents, who were clearly very eager to be alone. She smiled; she loved her parents and was especially happy to see how in love they were, but it just made her feel that much more alone. They seemed to sense that, and deliberately included her in their conversation… which just made it all that much worse.

She was determined not to be a drag on their vacation. She smiled, and awed in amazement at how beautiful their surroundings were, until they came to one of the gigantic luxury bungalows at the end of the deck. Her parents had almost the entire thing, but there was a small secondary suite on the second floor, accessible both through a staircase inside, and a second staircase that went up the outer deck. She hugged them both, went upstairs, unlocked her doors, and found the most beautiful room she had ever seen, wide open to the gorgeous pure blue ocean stretching all the way out to the edge of the lagoon, practically on the horizon, diaphanous linen curtains wafting effortlessly on the breeze, a slow lazy fan turning in on the ceiling. Everything was hardwood, most of it bamboo. She dropped her backpack on the huge bed, dropped onto it, and rubbed her palms into her eyes. She HAD to get herself together. This trip was too expensive, and meant too much to her family, for her to feel this shitty.

She found the shower, and felt a private little thrill when she realized that, even though it was totally private, it was completely open out into the ocean. Immediately curious, she stripped out of her travel clothes and took a long, cool shower, buffeted the entire time by the light breeze of the ocean. It was at once one of the most sensual and completely pointless experiences of her life. Once she was dry, she decided she would let her folks have the cottage. She found one of her bikinis that she had packed… it was an island, and pretty much everyone wore their bathing suits the whole time. She tied it in place, and then pulled a light sundress on over it, found some sandals, and moved her phone, keys and money into her tiny travel wallet, slinging it over her shoulder, blowing kisses to her parents who were cuddling on a huge wicker swing looking out over the ocean, and started the long walk back down the deck.

She found her way to one of the many beach-side bars, and took off her sunglasses, as the sun was starting to set anyway. She knew her family would all be relaxing after the flight, and would want to stay in and order their meals, so she was pretty much on her own. She hopped up on the bar, waving over a bartender and ordering a painkiller, the strongest tropical drink she could think of. She let him know she might be getting food later, and sat, sipping at her drink…

And realized she recognized the guy at the end of the bar. She raised an eyebrow at that, but he actually wasn’t looking at her at all. Huh. What are the odds? She considered it for a second, and decided to return his favor. She waved to the bartender, and bought the guy another of whatever he was drinking.

She turned on the bar, watching him. She didn’t really have a plan, but she was just a little too emotionally spent to really need one.