Flying east for the Winter

Hailey looked out the round window, as she saw her beautiful homeland slowly disappear beneath the clouds. This was no holiday, or high class business trip. Within her hand luggage was her visa slip for when she took her second flight from Doha and 5000 Hong Kong Dollars. This first flight she would spend her entire time awake. Realising to herself that her entire life was about to change.

'Am I fleeing it all?' She thought to herself, as the plane finally settled into its flight pattern, as the seatbelt lights went off. It was at this moment she realised a harsh truth, that this was the first flight she had taken alone. She looked around her, She was sitting next to a girl and a man who must have been her father. The man had found the passages of the Quran from the inflight entertainment screen in front of him and was praying as the flight started to settle. His daughter was also praying, but not as passionately as her father was.

Hailey looked through the screen and found the passages from the Quran, available in both Arabic and English. She guessed as such, she was using a middle eastern airline after all, but she still didn't really expect it. She wondered if European airlines had the bible on their in-flight screen, or if Israel's airline, whatever it was called, had the Torah. Either way, the screen she was looking at had many language options, but didn't have Afrikaans, so she settled with English. Perhaps she could understand Dutch, but she was about to teach English, so perhaps she should spend more time with the language. She then wondered to herself if she would ever learn Cantonese.

Looking through the options made her realise why this airline had become so highly regarded. Lots of films to watch, lots of TV shows and a lot of music options too! Hailey instead decided to put her own music on via her phone and read some of her book, Alone with you in the Either by Olive Blake.

Two hours passed like a breeze. She checked the progress of the flight and saw that the Plane was passing through Zimbabwean airspace and about to pass through Mozambique air space after that. How long until it was over Malawi? Then Tanzania? Then Kenya? Then Ethiopia, then Djibouti then that would be it. Africa would be behind her.

Africa; The place her ancestors arrived at to never venture back to their homeland ever again. Here she was, following in their footsteps. Leaving it all behind... forever. Hailey knew she was unlikely to ever return back to South Africa. She knew in her heart that she loved her country. She cheered as loud as everyone else in 2019 When the Springbok defeated the English in Yokohama. She was just a kid when Spain won their first ever world cup in 2010. She could still hear as the whole nation roared as Tshabalala's shot hit the ball right into the back of the net. When Ghana were just a Luis Suarez handball away from being the first African team to make the semi-finals. The anger people felt, as if it were their own country they saw just being robbed of its deserved glory.

Sport had a complicated history in South Africa, where soccer was for blacks and Rugby for whites. But for a moment, perhaps, during that world cup, maybe it was all finally over. The dirty past could finally be cleaned. Like treating sewage water to be drinkable again. Maybe South Africa could be what it always should have been. She would always hold onto that hope.

Hailey caught herself in her thoughts as the Air-stewardess attempted to gain her attention. Eventually, the daughter of the man who was earlier praying, had to catch Hailey's attention."Excuse me miss," She said, in a nice voice. Hailey looked over to see the Stewardess looking at her. She apologized to the stewardess and thanked the girl. She picked her meal and began to eat it. It was an ok meal, nothing too special but nothing too awful either. It filled her up for that moment. She wondered if she should ask the stewardess for a wine or spirit considering who she was sitting next to, so she instead took a can of sprite.

Despite being in the air, time wasn't flying for Hailey. It was going as slow as possible for her. She didn't feel like reading anymore and the selection of films on offer wasn't appealing to her as much as it had been before. She found herself staring blankly at a dark screen in front of her. Many passengers were either asleep or plugged into their entertainment. The father and daughter next to her were fast asleep. Hailey now realised that if she needed to go to the toilet, she would have to wake them both up, which wasn't an ideal situation.

She thought about her own father for a moment, then her mother, then her sister and then her brother too. She decided to check the map once more. They had just passed over Djibouti. Hailey was no longer in Africa. The destination was only a couple of hours away. Soon She will be in Doha, and embark on the next leg of her journey.

'What the fuck am I doing?' Hailey thought to herself. 'What the fuck are you doing?' came a voice in her head she didn't recognise. She looked out of the window and realized that she was indeed in an aeroplane. She checked her two boarding passes. Durban to Doha & Doha to Hong Kong. 'POES' she thought to herself. What was she doing? Would she ever find the time to see her family ever again? All of her friends that she would never see again. Why did she make this journey?

Hailey felt herself getting colder. She decided to pull on the blanket and put something on the screen in front of her. She picked the first option and decided to just concentrate on that. It was that Elvis biopic, perhaps it would take her mind of whatever it was that was making her feel uneasy.

20 minutes passed, and she had no idea what was happening in the film. All she could see was Tom Hanks in a weird fat suit. 'The contract you signed states that you have to give at least two months notice, Hailey, why did you sign that so blindly?' That voice, who was it? Hailey looked down for a moment, realising that she could hardly keep still. Her hands were shaking along with her knees. She felt that she needed big breaths very quickly, but tried to keep breathing through her nose. She looked to her right again but they, perhaps fortunately, they were still fast asleep.

She laid back and closed her eyes, which would only trap her within her own bitter and terrifying inner thoughts. She wished that the plane would crash on its way, and in a way that would imminently take her away from this world but keep everyone else in it. She thought of the man and his daughter beside her, realising that wishing for an impending doom was selfish. Did she want to die? No not really, but for some reason she felt in that moment that she could.

She realised now, that she couldn't carry on here, she had to find her way to the toilet. She tapped the girl lightly, to which she very quickly stood up, prompting her father to also get up. She rushed along toward the toilet. She didn't look towards either her or his face. She had no idea if they even noticed the peril she was feeling, but to her it didn't matter. Everyone had sort of blurred together.

Along the way she noticed her heart was beating as fast as the plane she was traveling on. It felt to her like a hand had clasped it within its harsh grip; with each heartbeat the heart's attempt to escape its relentless clutch. She could feel her heart getting colder, like somehow her heart was in a bath half filled with cold, but not freezing, water.

When she sat on the toilet, she gave up trying to breathe through her nose. She opened her mouth, and breathed as if she had spent a few minutes underwater. She felt afraid, like everything that could go wrong was about to be even worse than she had originally anticipated could have gone wrong for her. She's going to end up alone and working all the time. She's going to die and be replaced like she's nothing. Her own family will forget about her. Her home will slowly stop being her home every second she is away from it until, eventually, she wouldn't even be able to recognise it anymore. Hailey Van Ginkle will no longer exist. She would fade into obscurity to become another nobody trapped in an endless system of mindless labour. Another cog in a money printing machine designed for someone else. This was her destiny.

Her knees were relentlessly jumping up and down, filled with energy for whatever reason. In fact, it felt like she had enough energy to run back to Durban if the plane was to land, yet at the same time it felt like she could fall and never get up. Her vision was greatly distorted, as she felt herself unable to focus on anything. The door, was it even a door? That droning noise of the engine endlessly reminding that that she was 30,000 feet in the air with no chance of escaping this giant metal coffin until it landed. Was she even in a toilet 30,000 feet in the air or just a regular toilet back in Durban? A question she would have liked to ask herself, if not for the noise. It felt unreal to her that this was her reality. That just like that her entire world would be different.

Was she about to die? Here of all places? Was this a heart attack? Was this what a heart attack was? Hailey's mind continued to race and race. Her mind felt like a million different thoughts were racing through them. All at one and yet somehow her mind felt blank. Like she wasn't thinking but rather seeing a premonition of the future. If the plane crashed then the next one would still take off. If the plane lands, it would just refuel and take off once again.

The Aeroplane could see the world but was just a mere machine. Hailey felt a sudden strong connection towards the plane, which began to calm her down. Her mouth had become dry from all of the breathing. She felt that she desperately needed some water. There was only one water source available, the disgusting hand washing taps. The relenting shame of having to beg the arms of a stranger to assist her in such a dire moment of weakness was too much for Hailey to bare for herself. She didn't want to ask a steward or stewardess for a bottle of water right now. But, as it happened, she would get that support whether she wanted it or not.

The door opened suddenly, and before her stood an air stewardess. She looked toward Hailey, who was sitting on the toilet seat, clearly in distress and with a few dry marks around her. Without a word, the Stewardess handed Hailey a bottle of water and closed the toilet door, locking it behind her. Hailey was calmer now, much calmer. She didn't understand why she was calmer, she just felt it.

She remembered how she jumped for joy when she was offered the job. Finally a job opportunity, after over a year of looking. In a land where there weren't regular blackouts. She suddenly remembered how her family threw a party for her when she was offered the job. A nice braai with her extended family and friends! Everyone was excited to hear about Hong Kong and where she could potentially venture next! She would be making more money than she would have ever made before, more than her parents made, and would have her own place. It was a job she enjoyed doing too.

Hailey returned to her seat, thanking the stewardess on her way back to her seat. The stewardess in turn handed her another bottle of water and smiled at her. Somehow without a word needed, she was what she needed at that moment. A strange reassurance.

The girl next to her asked if she was ok, and in a sudden moment of thought, Hailey decided to be honest with her. "I think I just had a panic attack in the toilet" She said, with a slight shame in her voice. "It's this new job, in Hong Kong, it scary I guess" But the girl reassured her almost imminently.

"I have too been scared recently. I only passed my IELTS exam a couple of weeks ago. I will study in Britain in a few months. I am terrified" The girl responded, with a half smile on her face, somewhat hiding the fear she had just confessed to.

The two spoke for about an hour, unloading all of their worries onto each other:

"My father came to South Africa to pick me up from my work experience. I am going to study for a masters and then hopefully a doctors in Cambridge. It's very scary, but it's what I have always wanted to do. I hope I don't fail, and sometimes I miss waiting for it" were the words of this foreign girl, unleashing her life plan onto Hailey.

"I spent over a year unemployed with a primary teaching qualification. I was leeching of my parents. I hated that. I had to make my own way. I saw this job on offer and decided to go for it. The money was good and it offered me good terms." Were the words of Hailey, for only the ears of this foreign girl.

They never asked for each other's name, nor would they share contact information with each other. They only wished each other good luck, and left it at that. It was all that was needed. The girl began to pray as the plane approached, and Hailey looked out of the window. She knew that she was going to fly again soon, further from the nest.

(I was about to delete this, But then I decided to let it stay with a note. I wasn't honest with this story. So I apologise. I hid)