The snows start to fall as soon as I drive into Virginia. I am going to the airport to fly from D.C. to Doha to Singapore and finally to Denpasar, and it is nearly dark outside. As indicated by the mapping software I had used, the trip takes 5 hours. I drop off the rental car, sign paperwork indicating I did not shatter its rear bumper, and hop the shuttle; it has to turn around only once so I can drop off the car's key-fob, which I had left in my pocket. I arrive at the airport three hours before my flight, pass through security so quickly I barely register the inconvenience, and immediately go to my gate, just so I know where it is. Then, I begin the first of many circuits of the half-mile-long airport, watching the Sunday travelers as they hurry to board their flights. We embark on time, maybe a few minutes late, and I am overjoyed to find that the seat next to me is unoccupied. Seven hours later, at the crack of dawn, after having been de-iced and then heading straight back to the gate to try and wait out a raging snowstorm, the captain cancels the flight. We finish our meals and start leaving the plane, but the other passengers are not following the crew's instructions to de-board in an orderly way, by rows, so that when I exit I am at the very end of a queue that will take three more hours to clear. By the time I reach its front, I have circuited the airport a dozen times, only to be told that I did not have to wait in the line at all, as the same boarding pass will allow me to board the rescheduled flight. In an age of ubiquitous wifi and powerful computers, the Qatar Airways ground crew processes each affected traveler's queries and taxi vouchers in analog fashion, by hand. For the next twelve hours I alternately circuit the terminal, sleep at random gates, eat the healthiest fast food I can find, and with dull eyes watch hundreds of green-glad people (it is St. Patrick's Day) hurrying to their gates.
The flight to Doha finally takes off twenty-three hours behind schedule; exhausted from constantly walking, I awake nine hours into the twelve hour flight. In Qatar we go through security check again, and I spend my hours there over-watching a massive duty free area, making countless walking circuits, and eating halal food I pay for with a credit card. While riding the bus to our plane I let my tattoos show, hanging from the hand-holds and peering deliriously out into the night. I find myself being appraised by several young ladies, whose male companions eye me warily. Having sat in the wrong row I change seats and find myself next to an attractive, skinny British woman; her boyfriend is livid, staring straight ahead, on the verge of tears; he does not look directly at me until perhaps our last hour together, before which he tracks my every move out of the corners of his eyes; I could have taken a seat in one of the many empty rows, but I enjoy his torture, and so I stay. In roughly eleven hours we reach Singapore, go through security again, and enter a waiting area that has access to neither water nor restroom. The flight to Denpasar is uneventful, and when I arrive, my ATM card works, my ride is waiting, the rains have just stopped, and the sun is setting on a day that only Bali can deliver.
© americanifesto / 場黑麥
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