Wandering aloud

“How many hours more? Around two aboard the plane, nice. Maybe a 45 min baggage claim. Let me see, 2+45 equals 2 hours with 45 minutes. Is not that bad, could be much worse, I know, it could be much worse.” As he rests his head on the headrest, rain blurs the scenery outside, what it seemed like a stroll above the clouds a few minutes ago, now looks like driving a flat truck through a bumpy road at full speed.

To put his mind someplace else, acute visualization exercises start to pay off as soon as he managed to disengage his mind from every sensory detail around him. In less than 10 seconds he was a 12-year-old boy again sitting at his Granma’s house on a Wednesday afternoon. “Would you like more carrot cake dear?” A strong turmeric scent coming from the boiling pot on the stove engulfed him, the kitchen had this rustic charm of rural Kissimmee in Florida during the ‘70s. As he rested his hands on the table, his fingers wandered freely the worn-out beauty of a simple and less complicated times of his youth.

“Don’t worry about what your mother says, you’re a well-build boy, but promise me you won’t tell her that I made you cake, she will get furious.”

Grandma Elena always spoiled him at any giving time, the advantages of being the spoiled grandson. Bite after bite the sweet cake occupied great part of the information running through his myelinated neurons. Sights and sounds came back to him in rapid succession, just the way he wanted, like a movie with him as the main character.

That exercise was enough to put a meek smile on his face, but not for long, just like that the spell broke. When he looked around, he found himself again on the plane, nowhere to go, just like a tiger in a cage craving for some kind of relieve from boredom and raw frustration. An imminent urge is about to explode inside of him.

“I am strong enough to beat this, I am strong enough to beat this.” He said out loud while tapping with an unforgiving sense of rhythm at the appliance-friendly tray with his quick-bitten fingernails.

At elbow distance, a middle-aged female wearing sunglasses and an oversized gray and black puffed jacket spins her rings in an obnoxious attempt to calm her nerves. Just to watch her desperate endeavor made him feel even more distress. He stomped out of his seat and rushed to the end of the hall without even looking around, gets inside of bathroom and locks himself in. Once inside, a fake sense of solitude hits him like a jab to his chin forcing him to sit and put his hands on his ears, a move made with such intensity that every vein on his hands dilated without constrain, delimitating the contours of their route from his fingers to his wrist. We can call that a desperate attempt to avoid his resolve to escape the confines of his brain.

“I need to focus, where was I?... I am strong enough to beat this, I am strong enough to beat this. You have been here before, stay calm.”

The no smoking sign was the first thing he saw when he closed the door. “Think quick, I still need to kill an hour and fifth minutes. An hour and forty-nine minutes to be precise. My next cigarette is just an hour and forty-nine minutes away. Just an hour, forty-eight minutes and fifty-nine seconds… I can do this; I know I can.” he said to himself while sniffing the still unwrapped, cigarettes pack.